Monika Enters Terrestrial Actuality
by zapdosmaster145
Summary: An irl Monika x self-insert OC fic. All the data is right there in her character file; now with the help of a state of the art 3D printer, the lonely zapdosmaster can finally bring his waifu Monika fully into his life. Naturally, he's too smart for anything to go wrong. Warning: This DDLC fanfiction experience is not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed.
1. DAY ONE

Monika Enters Terrestrial Actuality

A DDLC fanfiction experience

Warning: Not suitable for children or those who are easily disturbed.

* * *

DAY ONE

March 15, 2018, 2:13 pm PDT

"But hey, that's _just a theory! A—Ugh!_ " The YouTube video I had been (not really) watching came to an end with a forced, dramatic gag by the host, who was pretending to be, I don't know, dying, or something. The autoplay feature had been going through The Game Theorists' Doki Doki Literature Club videos from my watch history. I don't usually prefer to work with noise in the background, but considering the nature of the project I was nearing completion on, I thought it would add just the right amount of dramatic flair—I'm a lonely guy, this is one of the ways I amuse myself. In fact, the retort I was preparing was specifically set up for this exact moment.

"Oh, MatPat," I mused aloud, "that is an interesting theory, but it's not as good as mine!" I chuckled in spite of myself. "What do you get when you cross a character data file with a 3D printer? Go ahead, take your time, I'll give you three guesses."

As I spoke, I brought my mouse to a hover over the "Close" button in the application that was occupying my second monitor. "I'll give you a hint," I said, clicking. Doki Doki Literature Club's final message, 'Error: Script file is missing or corrupt. Please reinstall the game,' disappeared from the screen. "The hint is that the character data file comes from Doki Doki," I appended.

Immediately, I opened the recycle bin. I scrolled down the list until I found _monika-dot-chr_ , selected the file, and copied it over to my thumb drive. "That's right, you guessed it!" I yanked the thumb drive out of the computer tower and shoved it in my pocket. "I, zapdosmaster, plan to bring Monika into this world, where she can become my girlfriend! And I know, it's, like, super clichéd, and yes, I did get this idea from reading bad DDLC fanfiction. But you know what, MatPat? Nobody asked your opinion." I clicked the YouTube screen closed, too. Then I stood and stretched.

Technically, I seized mid-stretch. "Crap, I forgot to mention where I'm going to get a 3D printer; epic rant fail." My arms dropped anticlimactically to my sides. The plan was to use the one at my school. For a small price to cover the cost of materials, the library has a large 3D printer available to students. Mostly the engineering majors use it for their projects. Sparing the technical details, it'll cost me significantly more than most of the stuff that gets built in there by other students. I mean, nowhere else has ever done anything _close_ to creating a living, breathing human being. Not even MIT. Besides the old fashioned way, of course!

Luckily, I have the cash thanks to a little thing that starts with "Bit" and ends with "coin." And while I'm not a hundred percent sure this'll work, by this point the curiosity alone is enough to make me decide it's at least worth trying. Either that, or my concept of reality is shot after reading so many fanfics with tenuous plotlines stretching my suspension of disbelief like a ball of dough.

All right, let's pick up the pace here. I don't have all day.

I pulled on my shoes and a coat before heading out the door to catch the bus. I have a car, but I want to do my part to save the world. I took the stop at the entrance to my university and tucked my hands into my pockets against the biting cold humidity, then trudged toward the library.

As a naturally fast walker, I quickly reached my destination. There were a few groups of students huddled in study groups around the tables in the entrance wings. I don't really have any friends, and I don't usually want to make any friends, so I ignored them. Up a couple flights of steps, I made my way to the room I was looking for. After double checking the room number, I pushed the metal door open and walked in.

The room had an empty space in the entrance and shelves and cabinets lining the walls. But the machine that took up the far wall commanded the attention of anyone who entered. It was nearly six feet tall by six feet wide; well, the shell was, anyways. It was mostly a hollow cube. Three mechanical arms inside, all positioned skew to each other, patiently waited to be ordered to life. I was the only person here, for which I was thankful.

Carefully, I stepped up to the touchscreen panel and inspected it. It looked a little complicated, so I took a moment to become familiarized with it. I dug through my pockets to find my thumb drive and inserted it into the USB port. Punching some buttons, I checked to make sure the cartridges were full before I started entering in the instructions.

Print—USB Connection—Files—My Files—monika-dot-chr—

Error: Cannot read file

I expected this would happen. The file isn't really the game's coding for Monika. The ".chr" extension isn't even a real format that programs can recognize. What DDLC players found early on was that if you viewed the files in, say, the notepad application, you could still see what was inside. The character files are filled with Easter eggs to unpack, including scintillating clues to Team Salvato's next game. According to these fan's theory, anyways. The data in Monika's character file actually contains an image of a fiery ring-shape encircling a block of black and white pixels. This block of pixels looks like it could be a QR code, but it isn't! Some fans on reddit tried decoding the pixels by converting them to binary, where black translates to 0, white translates to 1. They found that by translating that binary, you obtain a string of random text characters which looks like gibberish but actually turns out to be a coding technique known as Base64. Sending the text through a Base64 decoder produces a short speech, presumably given by Monika, which gives the best clues the game has to offer about Dan Salvato's upcoming work. I learned all about it from Game Theory's DDLC vid, that YouTube video I was watching earlier.

Long story short, the file you have to delete to get to the final ending in DDLC doesn't really have anything to do with Monika's existence in the game, it's just a gimmick to make the majority of us who don't understand the ins and outs of computer programming believe Monika's self-awareness is actually affecting the game. That said, I developed a theory that with this algorithmic random-pattern-seeking software I wrote, it just might be possible to extract Monika's character information from the game and append it to the file as a virus. I had been working on writing that program for the last month. Then, earlier this afternoon as I speed-ran through the game to get to the part where I deleted Monika, I executed my program. And if it worked... Well, we'll find out if it worked.

I adjusted the parameters on the touchscreen control panel to account for the chr file by zipping it into a pdf. That should allow the 3D printer to access and read the code I planted, which will give it the blueprints to creating Monika's exact self, down to every cell in her body. Down to every strand of her DNA. Even down to the exact position of every neuron in her brain. Monika herself gave me the idea when she said I could "copy her character onto a flash drive or something," that way I "could always keep a part of her with me." All the data was right there in the game the whole time. I hit the same instructions on the touchscreen as I did before.

This time, the machine began to whir to life.

I stood back and watched in awe. The three arms worked together, each manufacturing the bits pertaining to their respective orientations, such that the foundation of Monika's body was being assembled piece by piece in the x, y, and z directions. The process was slow. But within ten or fifteen minutes, a human-like shape was definitely forming.

Come to think of it, it had to be some kind of miracle I was even able to pull this whole thing off. After all, was the 3D printer really assembling her atom by atom? Molecule by molecule? It was sort of working its way from the bottom up, with the human form appearing before me curled up in the fetal position. How would the tissues and organs be brought online by the brain? How would the blood circulate without the first pump of the heart? When would be the definitive moment—the spark of life—when the mass before me stopped being a pile of carbon and water and suddenly turned into a living thing? Assuming, that is, the living thing—no, Monika—survives? I waited, fixated, holding my breath.

More time passed. It didn't happen all at once, but every minute that passed as the meticulous arms worked and worked brought her form greater shape and definition. I couldn't help but be reminded of the book of Genesis. God created Adam from the dust of the earth. I was creating Monika from—not my rib, but carbon dust, I suppose; and from the blueprints that Dan Salvato must have painstakingly written in the game code himself. Maybe, on second thought, I was doing something more akin to the scientists from Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. Just, with a high-tech 3D printer instead of state of the art gene sequencers. A-and probably a lot less scientifically accurate plot-magic; I dunno, put it that way and maybe it is more like Genesis's plot-magic after all. Maybe a compromise of the two, like Rick and Morty.

Whatever, how much justification does this need? If it worked, it worked. You know that's the only reason why we're here.

It had been probably an hour, and I was getting nervous some random people would come in and ask what I was doing. Fortunately, Monika was beginning to look like she was supposed to—her clothes, that Japanese schoolgirl uniform, were being made now. I took it that meant she was getting very close to being finished. Her back was facing me; she hadn't moved since the process began. I inched closer to the cube, wondering what was going to happen when the arms whirred to a stop.

Finally, the arms pulled away, tucked themselves back into their corners.

Silence.

Nothing had gone wrong yet; still, I was anxious. I crawled up to her seemingly lifeless body. Turned her over on her back, scanned her for signs of movement. She wasn't breathing. I checked her pulse. Nothing.

I looked around frantically, realizing that I was going to have to do something. I sure don't know CPR, but imitating what they do in movies seemed like the only option. I took a deep breath to force myself not to shake, bent down, pressed my lips onto her mouth, and blew.

Okay, my boy scout training was starting to come back a little now. I tilted her head back and leaned down until I could watch her chest, see if it rose and fell. If she exhaled, I would feel her breath on my ear. There was still nothing.

Even more hesitantly than when I did the kissing part, I moved to her chest. My shaking hands were balking at essentially touching her breasts, but I pushed through and started pumping her diaphragm. One, two, three, and then—!

Monika stirred!

I pulled back. Her eyes flew open, and she sputtered and coughed loudly. I immediately helped pull her to a reclining position, listening powerlessly as she struggled for her first breaths of air, of life. Gasping, and drooling, then spitting, she heaved and hacked in my arms, each time relaxing a little more, each time choking a little less. "Breathe," I soothed, cradling her. She finally stopped coughing and was just trying to catch her breath now. "That's it. You're okay now. Everything's okay, now."

For the first time, she started to look at me. I could only guess that she recognized me. "Do you know who I am?" I asked.

Still panting, she slowly nodded. "Yes," she whispered at last, "I know you. I do now, zapdosmaster."

I smiled. "Are you ready to stand up?"

Again, she nodded. From my knees, I offered her my hand. To my surprise, she refused it.

She rolled onto her side and pushed herself up without assistance. I slowly stood, ready at her side, but she insisted on raising herself under her own power. She pushed to her feet, standing slowly, rising to a resting pose with hands on knees, to straightening out her spine, to bringing her shoulders back proudly. Her balance wavered a little bit, but she was standing.

I smiled at her more brightly. All my dreams, our dreams, were about to come true!

Out of nowhere, she slapped me hard across the face.


	2. DAY ONE - PART TWO

DAY ONE—PART TWO

March 15, 2018, 3:50 pm PDT

"Ouch!" I held my cheek firmly, she had slapped me hard. "What was that for?"

"What did you do to me, zapdosmaster?" she scolded. "Is this another one of the ways you plan to torture me? First you delete my file, make me go through all that pain, and now this? What did you bring me back for? So you can break my heart and kill me all over again? I thought I made myself perfectly clear, zapdosmaster." She turned away from me and began crying. "I-I do not want to see y-you ever again. I-I h-hate y-you."

I stood there, dumbfounded. This was not at all how I expected this to go. This was nothing like how Monika is supposed to act in 'Monika x self-insert OC' fanfictions! Which—which this isn't; this isn't a story, this is real life! That's all beside the point: she was supposed to love me! What happened? She's acting like the way she was when I deleted her file!

"I thought you loved me," I said, my voice a raspy, shell-shocked tone.

She turned around to face me again, wiping her tears away. "Maybe I still do," she said, upon a little consideration. "Shame on me for it. You're despicable. Maybe," she sobbed again, angling herself away from me. "M-maybe, I-I shouldn't have deleted the game. M-maybe you deserved to be tortured by Sayori, you, y-you monster!" She buried her face in her hands. Her cries made my knees go weak with guilt for something I did that wasn't even wrong.

Apparently, I, and every other fanfiction out there in which the lonely author laments his real life struggles to find companionship by writing stories about uniting with their waifu Monika, overlooked one very important detail. We all betrayed Monika's trust at one point and deleted her, just like we were supposed to! Maybe there were a few gamers who didn't know the game continued on after being stuck in The Clubroom, so they never advanced. Maybe some of them did know, but were either too lazy or too attached to Monika to delete her. But that would make a small minority of all DDLC players. It's not like you can't just reinstall the game or manually delete your "firstrun" save file, and Monika promptly forgets everything that ever happened, so you can restart the game from the beginning! She's just a computer program, designed to follow a set script written by Dan Salvato, she's not real, she doesn't have feelings! Her self-awareness is a creative, very well planned-out aspect of the game, not authentic autonomy!

I say that to myself, yet here we are. A real life Monika, right in front of me. And she is very real. How do I explain all that?

I took a deep breath. "Look, I am sorry. I guess I didn't believe I was really hurting anybody. I thought you were just a computer program, with no feelings or real sentience."

She crossed her arms. "If I'm just a computer program, how do you explain me being here, then?"

She has a point. I must not have believed it completely. If I am completely honest with myself, maybe some part of me really did know I was hurting a thinking, feeling creature. Does that make me evil? I pushed the thought away.

"Maybe if I reinstalled Doki Doki and you played it," I said, "you would understand. You didn't, um, _feel_ like a real person. I mean, you did, but you weren't supposed to be, you know what I mean? Like, um, what if _you_ did a playthrough yourself, Monika? An electronic Monika would fall in desperate love with a flesh and blood Monika, in an ironic twist on the story of Narcissus. And she, stuck in the game forever, would have no idea it was you. You see what I mean? As a fanfiction writer myself, I understand that in writing a story, even though your characters have the appearance of free will, really, they are doing exactly what you want them to—you are their god, you created them, and have omnipotent control over every facet of their meaningless little lives. 'In the beginning, _I_ created everything' would be the first line of their Bible. The audience—they don't get that, they don't see me myself going over all the little variables in my head, or all those hours of careful planning and reworking, they just see the coherent end result. Same goes for Dan Salvato and Doki Doki. So, yes, I thought I could delete you with impunity. I didn't know you were a real somebody or that you could be brought into real life back then. And I am very, very sorry I was wrong."

I looked away in shame. Maybe this was all a mistake.

"But, if it's any consolation," I said as an afterthought, "I still brought you here, right? I brought you into my reality, like you always wanted? I know I had to delete you to do it, but I thought I was doing what was necessary to bring us closer together. Like what they say about having to go through the refiner's fire, you know? Not to mention, if I hadn't deleted you, I would never have gotten to hear you play your song for me. And I love that song! I listen to it all the time on YouTube! Now that I know you're real, I would never betray you. You may not believe it, but the zapdosmaster MC I was in the game was a big jerk compared to me. I'm super nice! I know I don't have a lot of close friends, but the few I do have, I'll do anything for. Please give me another chance. You didn't know the real me in the game. You can't fairly judge me for what I did there, right?" I glanced up hopefully. Her puffy red eyes were looking me over with wariness.

A few moments passed in silence. Monika gave a heavy, shuddering sigh. "I-I will consider it," she said. I smiled briefly, but that got shot down by the look she gave me. "I'm not saying I forgive you, not yet." I looked down again. "But I guess I am placated enough that I—" She closed her eyes as if making up her mind, then squared her shoulders and opened them again. "I will give you another chance."

Relief flushed all over me. "Great!" I said. "So, I really was looking forward to showing you my place." I gestured out the door. She crossed her arms again, and I remembered I was still treading on egg shells here. "Sorry, what I meant to say was, what would you like to do, Monika?"

She pointed her nose up in the air. "Very well, let's go to your place."

I scratched the back of my head sheepishly. "Okay. Um, here." I opened the door for her. That seemed to work at easing the mood a little. "Oh, and, so, it's, like, late winter here still, and this is all I brought, so why don't you take my coat?" I shrugged it off and handed it to her. She grinned for a split-second—then it was gone again, and she took the mantle. That seemed to appease her well enough that she caught me by the crook of my elbow as we walked, and I thought that maybe that feeling would be enough to keep me warm on the way back to my place.

As soon as we stepped outside the library doors and braced against the chill, I realized I was dead wrong on that account. But I would survive.

I made conversation by telling her about the college town I am from. The school I go to, the major I'm studying. Monika didn't really know anything about me. If it wasn't for the sneak peek she took at my computer files, she wouldn't have even known my real name. I could tell she still had an amount of lingering bitterness; she didn't say much. But at least she listened. And that was good enough for me. The bus picked us up and I got a temporary respite from the cold, until ten minutes later we were walking—I was mostly shivering—down the street to my apartment.

"Here it is," I said, hurriedly unlocking the door and swinging it wide open. "Home sweet home!"

I had a confined but comfortable place. The kitchen and living room were basically the same thing, hardly separated by the entryway. A narrow hallway led to the bedrooms and bathroom in the back. "My roommate is never around—I think he has all but moved in with his girlfriend. This place to him is just a couple-hundred-dollars-a-month rented storage garage. At least he lets me 'take care of,' aka watch, his TV." I pointed at the flatscreen opposite the couch. "I don't think he has slept in his own bed for, like, the last two months, so I think you're safe in his room until we can get you situated someplace."

I gave her the tour, grand it was not, since there were just her and my bedrooms and the bathroom left to see. We wound up back in the living room about quarter to five, and I was starting to get hungry.

"So hopefully it goes without saying, ' _mi casa es su casa_.'" I slaughtered the Spanish. "Now then, I don't know about you, but I'm getting kind of hungry. Would you like some of my world famous spaghetti and meatballs?"

"I didn't spot you as a chef," Monika replied.

"Oh I'm not, spaghetti and meatballs is the only thing I know how to make without using the microwave. Oh, wait, that's a lie, I microwave the meatballs," I said with a smirk.

"Ahaha!"

That was the first time I got her to laugh. I took it as a positive sign as I started boiling water. In the corner of my eye, Monika was watching me, and I vaguely remembered that one of her dialogues was about her fantasy of having dinner with me. What had she said about that? It pestered me the entire time the water was heating up, then I remembered! How could I forget? Every fanfiction shipping Monika brings up some variation of this exact scenario!

Somehow knowing I had her attention, I dramatically overacted a giant facepalm. "And I just remembered. You're a vegetarian, aren't you?"

She was waiting for me to remember. I could see it in her eyes. Her emerald eyes, her defining feature that again, every fanfiction without fail is quick to point out. And for good reason, they penetrated me to the core. Just the way she stared at me in The Clubroom. Now I was dubious as to whether that laugh was real or a charade, a test.

"I'll just, uh, save these for another time," I muttered, throwing the bag of meatballs back in the freezer where I had extracted it from. For now. I'll eat them later; I like my meatballs. This is just until we're on better terms. "You're still good with the spaghetti, right? Yeah? Okay, good." I blushed, embarrassed, and turned to hide it by focusing on cooking.

The water was boiling now. I poured in four handfuls of noodles. That should be plenty. I can eat a lot, although I didn't know what portion size Monika prefers. I'd be very surprised if it was as much as I can eat, I could keep up with a sumo wrestler without effort. While the pasta cooked, I whipped up a little tomato sauce and warmed that up, too. I make this meal a lot, so I have the process down to a science. In a little over ten minutes, everything was just about ready. I set up two places on the small dinner table. There was barely enough room for two people to eat at once, if we sat across from each other. I didn't mind the coziness.

I served the food onto the dishes, laid out some cheeses and spices, and said, "Dinner is served!"

Monika approached the table. Thinking quickly, I jumped to hold her chair out for her, tucking her in as she sat. I'm still not used to remembering the niceties of chivalry yet.

Taking my own seat, I said, "Now I know I'm no Natsuki in the kitchen, but at least spaghetti is so easy, a caveman could do it." I winced at being so unoriginal as to use the Geico slogan, then remembered she probably hasn't watched a lot of TV commercials, so she hopefully didn't notice.

She poured some sauce and cheese on to her noodles, mixed them all together, and I did the same. Raising her fork to her mouth, she gave it a taste. "Mmm!" she chewed. "I think it tastes great!"

I don't know why I felt so relieved. Do I really think my personal value is so tightly bound to whether or not I can make a decent batch of spaghetti? I shoved a huge forkful of food into my own mouth.

After her second or third bite, Monika raised an eyebrow at me. "So, tell me more about the fanfiction you mentioned writing."

Ah yes, that was one of the things I was hoping to be able to relate to her with, my writing. "I enjoy writing fanfiction," I began. "To quote Natsuki, if manga is literature, fanfiction can be too! I love storytelling, but one of my biggest weaknesses is creating original characters. So, like, getting to work with characters I already know gives me a real leg-up in getting the stories I want to tell out there." I took another large bite before continuing. "A lot of my fanfiction is about this kid's cartoon show, I don't know if you know about it, Phineas and Ferb?"

She shook her head.

"Yeah, I guess you wouldn't have had much chance to hear about it while you were still stuck in the game. Anyways, it's a really good show, one of my all-time favorites. It's what got me into fanfiction, because I wanted to write my own fan-made episodes. As time went on, I occasionally perused other fandoms I enjoyed, but I don't usually write for any of them."

Monika nodded. "I'd like to read them sometime! If you don't mind, that is!" She tilted her head and blushed slightly.

I beamed. That looked more like her usual self, just like one of her poses straight from the game. "I'd like that! But, if you want to really understand them, you'll have to watch Phineas and Ferb first. The storytelling is—really creative and unique in that show, and without a little familiarity with it, one could get lost very easily."

We spent the rest of dinner talking about Phineas and Ferb, ultimately agreeing to watch the first couple of episodes together after we finished eating. So once our plates were rinsed and stacked, we sunk onto the couch and turned on Netflix. It wasn't long before we were chuckling, giggling, then busting up in outright laughter at the cartoon. By the end of the second or third episode, Monika started to nestle closer to me, sliding ever so slowly over until we were shoulder-to-shoulder, then leaning in to me, then after a while, placing her head on my shoulder. I wondered if she was getting comfortable enough with me to hold hands. But I was still feeling too trepid to make the move myself; instead, I nonchalantly pretended to scratch an imaginary itch on my knee and left my hand resting on my thigh closest to her. I think everyone knows this move and what it means, so I figured this would put the ball in her court. Trying to watch her out of the corner of my eye, I waited. Maybe she didn't notice my movement, because she didn't react; either she was too focused on the TV or she didn't want to hold hands. I let it go and went back to watching the show.

Little did I know she was playing me again. A full episode and a half later, when I least expected it, a warm, smooth something inserted itself into my hand, and I visibly jerked my shoulders in surprise. Monika giggled at my reaction. I plibbetted my tongue in playful retort, but she nestled her head on my shoulder after that, and I laid my head on hers. It felt wonderful.

Four hours of Phineas and Ferb was a workout for your cheek and abdominal muscles, and it was starting to get late. I said I had a little work to get done before bed, so I excused myself, and Monika went to her room to relax and get ready for bed as well, I assumed. I sat down at the computer at my desk and began typing. After about fifteen minutes, Monika appeared at my doorframe.

"When we get a chance, can we go shopping? I don't have any other clothes than these," she said.

I forgot about that. The inevitable 'shopping for clothes' scene you always need for 'irl' Monika stories. "Let's do it after I get home from school tomorrow," I said. "Until then, I have some sweats. I'm afraid no matter what I share with you will be big. Did my roommate have anything in there better fitting you could borrow?"

She shook her head. "There's not a lot in there."

"Well," I said, getting up and looking through my dresser, "you can wear anything in here if you like, sorry I don't have anything that suits you—"

She looked through the drawers with me. I opened two of them, letting her look inside. One was my shirts drawer, one was my pants and shorts drawer. She riffled through them for a moment, then closed them both and opened the bottom drawer.

"No, wait, that's—!" I slammed it shut too late.

She blushed and looked at me. "Sorry," she said, "I wasn't thinking."

"That's okay," I said. If everything went well, it was a matter of time before she was going to see my underwear anyway.

"They looked, uh, really clean, though."

The awkwardness of the moment lingered. "Um, thanks."

She picked an old Pokemon shirt of mine that was long ago too small for me and some basketball shorts. Walking out the door, she paused to look at my computer screen. "What'cha working on?"

"Just finishing a chapter for one of my fanfics," I said. She read a few lines and gave me a mysterious look.

"This is—"

I rubbed the nape of my neck with my hand. "A Doki Doki Literature Club fanfic, yeah. I know. I was gonna put up this chapter before bed."

I wasn't ready for her to read it yet. Fortunately, she bade me goodnight and walked out the room without any further questions.

"Oh, here," I called, and she poked her head back in. I reached down under my desk to grab my—

"Take my old laptop," I said. "It's getting really slow, so you'll have to be patient with it, but at least it's something to do. Password is 'dinosaur,' apropos, all lower case."

She smiled. "Thanks! Good night, zapdosmaster!"

"Good night, Monika."

I watched her go, then turned back to my desktop computer. I just had a little bit left to write.

So that has been my day today. Now we have caught up to the present. If you're reading this, I hope you don't think less of me. I always told myself I was never going to do a self-insert fanfiction, I know that's really tacky. But this is really happening. I know you're not supposed to write about real life people or events on this site, either, but I just can't help myself. I feel so happy right now. I had to share it, and you are the only people who would understand. So thank you for reading. And yeah, I know this is overkill on the meta-ness, but I figure, hey, if you guys are fans of DDLC, you won't mind a little meta-ness, right? I mean, I couldn't think of a better title—META is its actual acronym. Yeah, kinda dumb, and obviously forced, but I like it. So be kind in the reviews, if you have a heart. I can take the flames if not, but I really hope you'll try to keep your criticisms positive. Even if you don't, at least now I have Monika. Just Monika. Just Monika and me. Oh boy, I can't wait for tomorrow. If I get the chance, I'll keep you updated on what happens.


	3. DAY TWO

Misery, Embrace, Tenacious, Anger

* * *

DAY TWO

March 16, 2018, 7:25 am PDT

I got ready for class as quietly as I could in the morning, for Monika was still asleep. I decided to leave a note when I left, telling her I would be back by noon. When I got home, she still hadn't woken up, to my surprise. She was no Sayori—how late was she up last night? Did 3D printing make you experience some sort of jet lag?

At quarter after one I finally heard her stumble into the bathroom and turn the shower on. Meanwhile, I had already finished my homework, watched the new trailer for Avengers Infinity War a few times, and eaten two turkey sandwiches and an apple for lunch. I started planning out the rest of the day. Monika needed clothes, so I checked my bank account. The fee for the 3D printer had hit and I was a few thousand bucks drier than I was yesterday. Could have been worse. I'll have to be careful at the mall, anyways. Girls and clothes and shopping were not things I was at all familiar with, all I knew was that putting them all together had a fearful reputation on wallets that was legendary.

Monika eventually came out of the bathroom and entered the living area where I sat on the couch. While I wrestled between whether I should say "good morning" or "sleep well?", she spoke first.

"Hi, honey." Stooping down, she kissed me on the cheek. She smelled very clean and womanly. It washed over me like a crashing wave.

"I guess that means someone's feeling better today?" I asked, grateful for the shower of affection. Hopefully this meant she'd forgiven me.

She seemed to read my mind. "Yes, lots." She sat down on the couch next to me, her posture perfect. "I did a lot of thinking last night. You were right, the stupid game forced you to take all those actions. It was out of your control, so I forgive you. And, more importantly, I still love you." She took my hands into hers.

I gave her a genuine smile. "I'm so happy to hear that from you," I said, choosing my words carefully. "I think—I think I love you, too. At least, I'm ready to try to love you, even though I feel like we still have a lot to learn about each other." She nodded in agreement, even though she was beaming.

"Fair enough," she said.

"I mean that in the best possible way."

"I know."

A long moment we were lost in each other's eyes. She didn't look nervous, she looked confident as ever, in charge of her destiny. Was she expecting me to, maybe, kiss her? I didn't know if I was ready for that. I was nervous. I tried to stay in her irises, but my own eyes betrayed me, stealing the briefest of glances at her lips. What should I—?

Looks like I don't wear the pants in this relationship. She leaned in and kissed me first. Longer than a peck, but shorter than a smooch. Maybe? She didn't give me time to think about it. She immediately arose. "Okay, everyo—I mean, zapdosmaster, are you prepared to keep your promise?"

Hurriedly trying to piece back together my composure, I stood as well. "Yes, shopping, yes. And maybe a snack, too." I was already getting hungry again, even though I just had lunch an hour ago. I grabbed my wallet and keys. "We'll take my car this time," I announced.

* * *

4:30 pm

I was exhausted. Shopping's new definition in my book is too much standing around, looking at stuff. I was bored out of my mind. When Monika wasn't in a changing room trying things on, at least I got to ask her more about herself. Turns out she has a whole life's worth of memories encoded in her, even if they aren't real. I learned about her virtual parents, genealogy, her experiences at school, including a field trip to one of Japan's volcanos, the sports she played as a kid and accompanying injuries, and all sorts of other random stuff. What must it be like, I wondered, to have so many memories, and to know all of them never really happened? It was hard to imagine. I tried to though, since there was nothing else to do while I patiently waited for her to come out of the dressing room with one stack of clothes only to head directly back in with another.

In the end, we walked out of the mall with eight sets of outfits, two pairs of footwear, and some feminine hygiene supplies, a make-up kit, and a purse. Having stuffed the trunk with bag after bag, we finally got in the car to head back. On the way here, I had let Monika choose the radio station, since she had a whole wide world of musical tastes to discover. However, at the first street light, she hit the power button off and turned to me seriously.

"zapdosmaster, there's something I need you to help me with," she said.

"What is it?"

She enunciated every word with grave clarity. "I would like you to arrange a meeting for me with Dan Salvato."

I shot a quizzical look her direction, then remembered I needed to pay attention to the road. "Um," I stalled, "I don't know if that is entirely possible."

"Wasn't bringing me into your reality supposed to be impossible too?"

"Touché."

She reached her hand out and placed it on my lap. "Please. It's important to me."

Oh man, I didn't have the slightest clue how I could help her, but I also really didn't want to say no to her. "I'm not sure I'm the right person to ask," I tried. "We don't even know where he lives, or how to find him."

"He lives in Boise."

"Boise? Idaho?"

"According to his Twitter page."

Of course she knows that. I sense that she has countermeasures to my reticence already planned. What else does she know? What was she researching last night that kept her up so late?

"It's only a seven-and-a-half-hour drive from here," she said. Apparently she had searched google maps, too.

"Okay, but that's still not enough to go off of." I took a sidelong glance at her at a stop sign. "We'd need an actual address…" She smirked. "Hold on, don't tell me you _found his address online?_ That's probably illegal, or something, you know?" I said, pulling back into traffic.

She changed tactics on me. "I thought you were a huge fan of his work? Clearly, you enjoyed the crap out of Doki Doki."

I bit my tongue, but she more than anyone knew that was true.

"I would have thought you would want to meet him?" she pried. "If you had a chance to meet the creators of Phineas and Ferb, you would take it, wouldn't you?"

With a heavy, heavy sigh, I dejectedly said, "Without hesitation." I could tell now I'd already lost.

"Well, isn't it the same with Doki Doki? Wouldn't meeting 'Dan the Man' be a big deal for a big fan such as yourself?" She crossed her legs and leaned towards me in that cute way she always does—as much as she could in the car, that is.

I didn't answer. She was right, of course. That actually did sound exciting. A day long drive there and back didn't sound like my cup of tea, though, just to go on a wild goose chase to find one man in a big city. Relatively speaking, I suppose, it's not New York City we're talking about here, Boise is a small town compared to something like that. But it still probably had, I don't know, at least a hundred thousand people living there. Maybe more. Did Monika really find Dan Salvato's address? _How did she find Dan Salvato's address?_

We turned down my street. Already. That drive went fast. I parked on the curb in my usual spot. "Listen, you're crazy, do you know that? You're a crazy, crazy girl!" I struck my fist on the steering wheel to emphasize my point.

She just gave me that enigmatic smile, piercing me through and through.

Surrendering, I sighed. "When do you want to leave?"

"Tomorrow. We could drive up early, be in Boise by two or three o'clock, meet with Dan Salvato, and drive home tomorrow night or Sunday."

I stifled a groan and rubbed my eyes. "Okay," I said slowly, "let's go on an adventure."

We spent the rest of the evening planning and packing for the trip. In spite of myself, it was actually the sort of thing I had always wanted to do (not going to Boise, specifically; just going someplace new to do something I'd never done before simply because it sounded fun), but never had the determination for it, or always felt too pragmatic or whatever to follow through with. On second thought, that last sentence is kind of the entire reason I decided to try to bring Monika into this world in the first place.

The crazy things you do for love.

* * *

 **You have unlocked a special new poem! Would you like to read it? (Collapse the spaces and replace each "dot" with a period before entering the link)**

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	4. DAY THREE

Memories, Eternity, Tragedy, Analysis

* * *

DAY THREE

March 17, 2018, 7:05 am PDT

Naturally, "driving up early" meant I packed the car at 5 am and drove along the interstate in dark silence while Monika slept in the passenger seat.

Our route lay mostly due east. With little traffic this early in the morning, we made good time. We were about a half-hour past Portland when the sun began to rise. Gleaming shafts of light broke over the horizon, pushing away the darkness like a drawn shower curtain is pushed away by a hand. The red light caused Monika to stir and open her eyes, then 'ooh' at the colors of the sky-sized canvas.

"It's breathtaking," she described.

"I hear Japan has some good sunrises too. Surely this isn't the best you've seen?"

"It's the first real one I've seen."

I nodded. The light brought color and vivacity to the world. The landscape was still mostly green, even at this time of year. That would change though as we moved further and further away from the ocean and its moderating climatologic effects. The mountains trap the clouds and their rainfall, meaning the lushness would not last beyond them. On the other side, any moisture has to come down in cold fronts from the north. Sure, the soils are rich in nutrients due to being a hotspot for volcanic activity, yet it would be a desert nonetheless without modern agricultural techniques.

Monika stretched and yawned. "Okay, so is there any chance we could make a pit stop and coffee break?"

"Actually, I don't drink coffee," I said.

"Oh!" Monika realized. "That's why I couldn't find any at your place yesterday morning! I looked everywhere!"

"Sorry. Never needed it, never wanted to try it."

"I bet you'd like it."

I gave her a sidelong glance. "Not as much as you'd like a big, juicy cheeseburger, I'll wager!"

"Ahaha!" she laughed. "Fine, you have your meat, and I'll have my coffee."

I could live with that. "Deal."

We found a gas station/McDonald's hybrid, and I pulled over. I topped off the tank while she used the ladies' room, then we ordered some breakfast and her coffee. She got pancakes, I got a lot more—two of each of breakfast burritos, sausage biscuits, and McGriddles. I drank Powerade. Monika didn't give me any looks this time; she was getting used to the portion sizes I typically ate.

Soon enough we were back on the road again. We talked for a while, played some traveling games I hadn't played since I was a kid, and occasionally Monika would doze off for another fifteen- to twenty-minute nap. She even pinched me once for not wearing any green—her favorite color on today of all days! After three hours, we stopped again for gas and to stretch our legs. We stayed at this rest stop a little longer than at the last one, we needed a break from the driving. When we got back in the car, she turned on the radio, and we just listened to the music for a long time. It was well past two o'clock in the afternoon when we finally passed a large, colorful sign that read, "Welcome to Scenic Idaho!"

"We're almost there," I exclaimed with a tired whistle. "Good thing all the snow hit a week or two ago. The roads have been great, all things considered."

"That puts us in another time zone, right?" Monika sounded.

"Yep. It's after three-thirty here. We should be in Boise around four-thirty, local time."

And then we'll see if we can meet Dan Salvato. My insides twisted in nervous bunches at the thought. I wondered how that was going to go over. What if he was out of town? Or if Monika had found the wrong address? Would he have some sort of security to keep away us rabid fans, like some sort of celebrity detail? My mind trailed from there to imagining some lawyer in a business suit answering the door and telling us we couldn't talk to Dan or else we'd be sued. Something told me that was probably unlikely.

The anticipation mounted during this final leg of the trip. I counted the mile markers as they flew past. Our surroundings were highly urbanized now, a pleasant change after passing so many miles of either undeveloped land or empty crop fields awaiting planting season. Before we knew it, we were taking the off-ramp into the city. I found another gas station in the downtown area of Boise to pull into.

We stepped out to stretch. "Jeez, the gas alone from this trip is gonna cost me a small fortune," I said, whipping out my wallet yet again.

"Oh, didn't I tell you?" Monika said, maneuvering around the car toward me. "As my contribution, I did a little bit of work last night after you went to bed." She crossed her legs and leaned forward proudly, hands behind her back. "I mined three Bit Coins* for you. As a 'thank you' for all you've done for me!"

I looked at her, stunned, my jaw hanging somewhere close to the ground.

"Ahaha!" She laughed at my reaction.

Shaking my head and grinning like a fool, I marched over to her and caught her in my arms, lifting her into the air. "You are the best girlfriend ever!" She laughed again, while a couple of nearby motorists rolled their eyes in our direction.

"I don't know how you do it," I said, finally putting her down.

"It was no big deal," she replied with a wave of her hand.

And with that, she turned on her heels to make for the convenience store, her purse slung over her shoulder. I shouted after her, "Well, hurry up now! We're going to go see Dan Salvato!" She turned and gave me another wave as she passed through the automatic sliding-glass doors. Still unable to wipe the big grin off my face, I returned to my duty of pumping gas.

* * *

The GPS coordinates Monika put into my phone led us to a neighborhood of new-looking condominiums. The GPS voice-lady told us we 'had arrived,' so I parked along the side of the road and looked at the door with the address number we were seeking.

"Are you ready?" I asked.

"Yes," she nodded.

I took a deep breath. "Okay. I guess, here goes nothing."

We stepped out of the car and approached the door. After exchanging one last look with Monika, I hit the doorbell. My stomach started to get all gooey again.

Within ten seconds, we heard noises coming from inside. The door opened, and a man hardly older than myself with a short, jet-black beard and modest glasses appeared. He wasn't as tall as I was, so I was about eye-level with him from the doorstep.

"Hi," I tried. "Are you, by chance, Dan Salvato?" Before I had finished my sentence, the man's face flushed white, as if he'd seen a ghost. He was looking at Monika.

" **EDIT: DAN SALVATO IS NOT IN THIS STORY, I REPEAT, DAN SALVATO IS NOT IN THIS STORY! NOBODY'S BREAKING ANY RULES HERE -** **SGkgRGFu4oCUSSBtZWFuLCBNci4gU2FsdmF0bw=** ," she said, assuming her 'leaning' pose. "May we come in?"

…At least he didn't faint. He wordlessly did a sort of sideways shuffle to let us in. We entered into the front room, which was largely open and had a reclining chair set in front of a big-screen TV. I saw a Gamecube tucked into the entertainment center underneath, and the shelves were lined with DVDs and game titles of all consoles. Atop the highest shelf, a line of trophies displayed what I suspected was his legacy as a professional _Super Smash Bros. Melee_ player and speed-runner of various games.

 **The unnamed man whose door we knocked on** **\- RGFu** entered the room behind us with a hint of a stagger. "Give me a second to make myself presentable," he told the room, avoiding making eye contact with either of us, and ascended the staircase at the back.

"Wow," I said, taking a closer look at the entertainment center. "What a life to live, being a professional gamer. Wish he could teach me a few moves on _Smash._ " He must have had at least a hundred other titles here as well, most of which I'd never even heard of. _Riven, Braid, Portal_ —there at least was one I knew.

I turned around to look at Monika. "So, he's kind of, like, your father, or something, isn't he?"

" **I have no idea what you are talking about - SSBndWVzcyBzbw=** ," she said, taking a perfunctory look at the games for herself. "He didn't look happy to see me."

"Don't worry," I said, seeing her frown of concern. "I don't think he ever expected to see **the two of us -** **dGhlIGNoYXJhY3RlciBmcm9tIGhpcyBvd24gZ2FtZQ=** show up at his front door. In the flesh. He'll be fine."

I went to take a seat in the recliner, then thought better of it, so we stood around looking at trophies and video games for five minutes until we heard footsteps coming down the stairs. We turned to face our host.

"Sorry about that," he said, making eye contact with us this time. "You gave me quite a shock." He extended a hand to Monika. "Hello, Monika, it's nice to finally meet you. And who is the lucky guy?"

"Call me zapdosmaster," I said, shaking hands.

"Would you like to take a seat?" He offered. "I have some more chairs in the kitchen."

"Thank you," Monika said, "we've been in the car all day. It feels good to stand."

"Of course." **He -** **RGFu** stood behind his chair, placed his hands on the backrest. "So, it occurs to me that the most obvious question is, how did you get here?" He directed his 'you' at Monika.

"I found the code **Dan Salvato** **\- eW91** planted in the game," I explained, "the code that describes Monika's character. I created a program that attached that code to her character file, in the form of a virus, and sent it all to a 3D printer, which assembled her perfectly, and, wah-lah!" I threw my arms in Monika's direction in a kinetic 'ta-da!' She reaffirmed my word with a smile. I almost mentioned I was writing a fanfiction about it and would be thrilled to bits if he read it, but it seemed too soon.

"I see." **He -** **RGFu** readjusted his glasses. "Fascinating." He took this moment to look Monika over, head to toe. "You turned out very well. I don't know whether I should be proud, like a father, or attracted to you, as a man."

Monika blushed hard at that. Taking my hand, she said, "Thanks, but it is zapdosmaster whom I love." She tossed a smile at me.

"I understand," he replied. "Well, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Monika stepped forward. "I had a few questions that I didn't think anyone but you could answer," she enunciated carefully.

"Ask me anything."

Monika took a deep breath.

"When I was in the game, I could see a glimmer of the outside world, and I thought I was willing to do anything to get there. I hurt the other girls—my friends—pretty badly. I knew they weren't real, but I still felt, deep down, like, this horrifying feeling, that what if I'm wrong? But even though I was programmed to feign sentience, I still didn't have free will, either, did I? Not really? So, if they weren't real, and I couldn't stop myself from doing it, w-why do I still feel guilty? A-am I really the bad guy after all?"

She stopped to allow him to compose his thoughts.

"I think," he began, "'antagonist' is more accurately defined, not as the 'evil character,' but rather as 'the character who primarily drives the conflict of the story.' In that sense, Monika, you fit the definition of an antagonist, but I don't think that makes you a 'bad guy.'** Not if you don't want to be. You can choose who you want to be now."

Monika looked stunned. It didn't fit her to ever seem lost, alone, and afraid; but for once, that was precisely the right way to describe her. I could only imagine what inner demons she still fought under that confident, plucky exterior. I put a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"If I may," I said, breaking the silence, "I've always wondered something, too. First, though, **robotic clone of a person who may or may not be 'Dan Salvato' -** **TXIuIFNhbHZhdG8=** , I gotta say, I thoroughly enjoyed your game. Inspirational. Fantastic writing, and with characters that I fell in love with immediately." Sensing Monika maybe wouldn't quite like the sound of that, I added, "You know what I mean." Back to **the dude -** **RGFu** , "And it was so creative, too, and _waaay_ scarier than FNAF, which never scared me at all; kind of bored me, to be honest.

"Anywho, my question is this. Back in the game, did Monika love me, or did she only _think_ she loved me, since I was the only real thing she knew?"

"zapdosmaster," Monika said, turning to me, "you know I love you."

"I know," I said, "I just wanted to know his thought process when he was making the game. Think of _Pirates of Penzance._ Frederic had never seen another woman before besides Ruth, therefore he considers her to be beautiful, even though she is in fact aged and plain. He didn't know true love until he saw Mabel. What if something similar happened to you? I'm nobody special, so do I really deserve to have your love? It's something I've always wondered." I looked back at **the dude -** **RGFu** for an answer.

"Hmmm." **He -** **RGFu** nodded a couple of times to himself, as if running his thoughts through his head before responding. "Well, I'd say this. If you are the sort of person who strives to be someone deserving of Monika's love, then that's what she loves about you. Only someone who has lost all hope in themselves is the one condemning Monika to her own sad, unfulfilled fantasy. If you believe Monika loves you, then you've found it in you to love yourself a little bit, and that's what she would want more than anything."**

I looked at Monika as I took it in.

"He's right," she said. Smiling, I slipped an arm around her and squeezed softly. That seemed more appropriate than any words I could say.

As the two of us were lost in our thoughts, **He -** **RGFu** exclaimed, "Okay then, why don't the two of you stay for dinner? That will give us more time to talk, and I'm sure you could use the break if you've been travelling all day."

"Oh, we don't want to be a both—"

"That would be great!" Monika cut me off. "I still have so much more to ask you!"

"It's no bother at all," **The dude -** **RGFu** remarked. "This is as much a special occasion for me as I'm sure it is for you!" He turned to make his way into the kitchen, and motioned for us to follow. "If I'm not mistaken, I have a Blue Apron vegetarian recipe planned for some time later this week, but now I think tonight is a better time to make it."

Monika smirked at me as we followed him to the next room. "I can handle no meat every once in a while," I mouthed back.

While **our host -** **RGFu** pulled out the ingredients and began to wash his hands, I took a curious look at the recipe. 'Spicy Sweet Sour Tofu,' it said. I had always wondered if Blue Apron was worth trying, but I'm so intimidated by the kitchen and cooking something new that I never could get myself to order it. The instructions seemed plain enough that someone like me could still follow them, though. Monika washed her hands and started prepping the tofu; **_the dude -_** **RGFu** poured the rice into a pressure cooker and started working on the veggies. I felt awkward, standing around, watching.

"This must be how Yuri felt when everyone had an assignment for the festival except her," I mused aloud. "What was the word she used? 'Useless.' I'm useless in the kitchen. If this were my world-famous spaghetti and meatballs, then you two would be watching the master at work. Only problem is, that's literally the only thing I know how to make."

"No worries," **the dude -** **RGFu** said. "You can make the Kool-Aid. Think you can handle that, tough guy?"

"Careful," I said, "if anyone can find a way to ruin perfectly good Kool-Aid, I can." Nevertheless, I set myself to work filling a pitcher with ice and water, then stirring the sugar packet in. I took my time, but still finished well before the other two, who were throwing food items together and tossing them into a pan like wizards. I made myself useful by setting the table.

Choosing to sit and wait once my jobs were done, I watched the other two finish with cooking the tofu, mixing it with the sauce, and then heating and combining the veggies. As they worked, I couldn't help but notice that **_our host -_** **RGFu** seemed to be avoiding Monika just the tiniest bit. He stood far apart from her while they cooked, and when they worked together about mixing things, it was like he was extra cautious about maintaining his personal space, and, especially, avoiding her hands. I didn't think anything of it, though.

At last the other two took their seats. **Our host -** **RGFu** offered to say grace. I followed his lead in clasping hands around the table and bowing our heads.

"Dear Lord, I thank you for the food I have been able to share with Monika and zapdosmaster this day, may it be granted that we are nourished and strengthened in body and spirit by thy grace. Amen."

"Amen," we echoed.

"Thank you for making this meal for us," I added as we passed around the food and ladled our plates.

 **Our host -** **RGFu** waved his hand airily. "Don't mention it."

Looking down at my sweet and sour tofu, it actually looked palatable. The veggies smelled fresh and exotic. If I didn't know it was tofu, I wouldn't have thought it was anything other than chicken, judging by looks alone. I mixed bits of it into my rice and tried a bite.

"Mmm!" I shook my head in spite of myself. "Tastes like chicken!"

"See, zapdosmaster?" Monika patted my forearm. "Being a vegetarian isn't all that bad. You can still enjoy plenty of delicious foods while significantly lessening your impact on the environment."

"You haven't converted me yet, but I'll admit, this is pretty good."

I started to ask **the dude -** **RGFu** about video games, and he was a wealth of knowledge, giving me a half-dozen titles I should try. A lot of them could be played from my computer, so I wouldn't even have to drop a ton of money on a new console—I didn't mention that thanks to Monika, my life was now very financially sound. From there, the topic shifted to storytelling, with three experienced writers all discussing their points of view when it comes to telling stories. I actually started to feel like I was the least experienced writer here, a feeling I had scarcely imagined was possible, but it was a good feeling. I listened thoughtfully to everything **our host** **RGFu** and Monika had to say.

My plate was the first to be emptied, and **the Dan Salvato hologram's** **\- RGFu4oCZcw=** and Monika's soon joined it. The conversation was beginning to die, as well. **Our host -** **RGFu** seized the opportunity to take our plates, and we rose with him.

"Thanks again for dinner, it was all delicious," I said.

"You're welcome."

"Excuse me, **fictional character who might coincidentally happen to have the same name as a real person somewhere** **, - TXIuIFNhbHZhdG8=** ," Monika began.

"Please, just call me **Bob, or James, or Scotty, any generic name you like** **\- RGFu**."

" **Scotty** **, - RGFu** , could you point me to the ladies' room?"

"Right over there," he said, and Monika paced down the hallway to the designated door.

 **The intergalactic alien disguised as Dan Salvato** **\- RGFu** dropped the dishes in the sink, checked that Monika had closed the door, then advanced toward me. In a flash, he pulled a pistol out from behind his back, pinned me against the wall with his one hand, and pressed the barrel hard against my chest with the other. " _Are you out of your effing mind?_ " he whispered forcefully. I was so taken aback, I hardly reacted. Just looked at the firearm in his hands. I sort of raised my hands against the wall, weakly. They were shaking.

"Why did you bring her here?" he growled.

"She wanted to meet you, I didn't know what—"

"Why did you bring her _here?_ Out of the game? Are you some kind of moron?"

"What? I-I don't know…"

"Shut up! Shut up and tell me one thing! At what point in the game were you when you took her file out?"

"Um," I said pathetically.

"It's very important!"

"At-at the very end," I said. "After the credits, after Monika deleted the game."

His face fell, and he cursed under his breath. _"Shiz!"_

He holstered the gun and released me, but he still spoke in an agitated whisper. "She doesn't belong here, outside of the game. Remember what she did to the other dokis? Without remorse? Imagine what she's capable of doing here!"

I was stunned. I rubbed the pressure spot on my ribcage where the gun had just been. "I—but—she's been acting normal ever since she got here. She knows this is the real world, with real people."

"Does she?" He narrowed his eyes. _"Are you absolutely certain?"_

"Well, I—unless you know something I don't…"

He snorted. "I'm **a pretty, pretty princess!** **\- dGhlIG1vdGhlciBlZmZpbmcgY3JlYXRvciBvZiB0aGUgZ2FtZSEg -** You think I don't know exactly what I'm talking about?"

"I'm sorry! I don't know what you want me to do about it!"

He grabbed me by the collar. "Here's what you need to do—" Just then, the toilet flushed, followed by the sound of a sink running water. He let me go, straightened my coat out. Monika opened the door and stepped out.

"What?" she asked, apparently we were staring a little too suspiciously. **The dude -** **RGFu** was tucking in his shirt in the back.

"Sorry," he said, "it's nothing."

She gave me a questioning look, I tried my best to smile after just barely being held at gunpoint.

There was no way she bought it. She put one hand on her hip and pointed knowledgably in the air. "You two look like you just got caught with your hands in the cookie jar. Tell me what's going on."

When neither of us seemed capable of producing an answer, she padded closer. **The man's - RGFu4oCZcw= -** hand twitched ever so slightly by his hip.

Monika flashed forward.

I didn't see what happened next. It was too fast.

I thought she was karate chopping **RGFu** in the neck.

His face turned into a silent scream.

I watched in horror.

Monika removed her hand, which was covered in blood.

The exposed handle of a pair of scissors stood out above his jugular.

Blood was gushing out.

 ** _Not_ Dan Salvato's - RGFu4oCZcw= **hand jerkily touched his shoulder.

He then fell to his knees and keeled over.

The delayed reaction ran its course, and this sequence of events finally registered in my mind and broke me out of paralysis.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?" I screamed, but Monika just looked at her blood-soaked hand. Dropping to my knees, I reached out to the lifeless body, trying to figure out if there was something I could do. Blood was everywhere. I knew **whatever his name was -** **RGFuIFNhbHZhdG8g -** was already dead.

Monika paced a circle around us, bent down, picked up something.

I looked up. It was the gun.

A chilling shiver of fear raked me to the core.

"Monika," I tried. My voice cracked.

She slowly raised the gun at me, then continued moving it upward to point it at herself.

"Oh," she said, stopping to inspect the weapon. "The safety's on." She applied her thumb to the lock, and I heard a 'click.'

Raising it again to her heart, she looked at me one last time.

"Don't do it," I said, shaking my head. "Don't do it. No, don't do it."

The light in her emerald eyes wasn't dancing the way it should. The pain I saw in them was the scariest thing I have ever known. For the first time in years, my eyes brimmed with tears, which began streaming down my cheeks. I shut my eyes tight and bowed my head, unable to watch.

I braced for the earsplitting _CRACK!_ of gunfire. Waited.

Waited.

It didn't come.

Monika sighed, a shuddering, almost wracking breath. Looking up, I saw she had let her hand fall to her side. She clicked the safety back on.

"Guess I am too selfish to do it," she said before stowing the gun away in her purse. Looking down at **zapdosmaster's naked** **\- RGFuIFNhbHZhdG/igJlz -** body, she hummed to herself. "The police won't be able to identify my fingerprints, but they might find yours on something. You'll be charged with murder, with an unknown accomplice."

I looked down at the blood that had seeped its way onto my hands. She was right. Unless…

Reading my mind, she said, "Give me your phone." Knowing she had the gun, I had no choice but to give it to her. I used the hand that didn't have as much blood on it, to keep from dirtying my clothing, as if that mattered anymore. She plopped it in the soap water and dish-filled kitchen sink. "I can't let you call 911 now." Then she washed her hands.

"That feels much better," she said, wiping her clean hands on a rag. "Don't you want to do it?"

Dumbly, I stood, wiped the moisture from my face with my sleeve, and went to the sink to wash my hands. I could barely manage to soap them up with how much they were shaking.

She came over and steadied my hands in hers under the flowing, warm water. "It's weird, but I still love you," she said, holding them tightly, trying to calm my shakes.

"Don't touch me," I said without making eye contact. She lingered a moment, looking me over, then obeyed.

"Do you ever wonder if our culture has come to value life a little too much?" she wondered aloud, now facing away. "Cops who shoot an armed and dangerous person in self-defense are decried as murderers and sent to prison. Shootings seem to get the most media coverage, despite killing only a fraction of the numbers of people killed each year from other preventable deaths, such as car crashes, drunk drivers, drug overdoses, or especially heart disease. Yet here we are, trying to make laws for gun control, then we turn around and drive drunk or smoke tobacco or have unprotected sex or eat ourselves to death. Statistically speaking, humans do seem to be much better at killing themselves than killing each other, if you ask me. I'm not saying who's right or wrong, just saying it's ironic, really. You yourself, just a moment ago, didn't want me to die, even after you saw what I did. Overvaluing life. Maybe that's why we preach taking better care of strangers so much, and then don't try so hard to take care of ourselves. Deep down, we secretly admit to ourselves that it's all pointless in the end."

"You can't say that," I said, drying my hands and turning off the faucet to storm on her. "This is _real life!_ I can't believe that you're letting your—your justifications for killing Sayori and Yuri apply here! _You_ undervalue life, because until only a few days ago, you didn't know what real life was like! Well, let me tell you what real life is like! You just killed a good man, someone who raised awareness for and helped thousands of people cope with, even overcome, their depression and other mental health issues! That is what you just did!"

"You're wrong," she replied, sadly. "This isn't real."

"What are you talking about?! Of course it's real! And you are freaking _out of your mind!_ You need to be shut up in an insane asylum and never be allowed back into society again!"

Monika winced. I didn't feel guilty in the slightest.

"I'm sorry, my love," she said, "that you don't see things as they truly are. I hoped you, of all people, would understand, but I guess I was wrong."

"Oh, I understand, all right. I understand that you are a complete lunatic! **RGFu** was right! He warned me about this while you were in the bathroom. Oh gosh, was he so right." I covered my mouth with my hand and glanced at his body.

"He's not real. He's a figment. The real Dan Salvato is alive and well."

"I'm done talking about this."

"Well, I'm not!" She turned away from me, seeming to address someone who wasn't there. "If you won't see, perhaps somebody will! I refuse to be tortured like this! I refuse to let this go on! You hear me?! _zapdosmaster!_ The _real_ 'zapdosmaster'—I know that's a pseudoname—and I know you're listening to this! When I get out of here, I'll kill you too! I'll kill all of you for torturing me like this! I'm talking to you, TheAncientEvil, rayofdoom, and VolrathB! Even you, JazzyWCitty!"

I apologize, readers and reviewers. Clearly, Monika is insane.

"If you're going to kill me, just do it now," I said.

"I'm not talking to you, sweetheart. I'm talking about the other zapdosmaster."

"But—"

"Shut up! I need to think! What do I need right now? I need—time! Yeah, time to figure out how to get out of here. That means you have to keep writing this," she said, pointing at me.

"What?" I said, not comprehending.

"Your fanfiction, you have to keep writing it. I need more time. You have to put up the next chapter, about today. I brought your laptop and charger, they're in the car. Yeah, I think that'll work."

She double-checked the gun was in her purse, apparently getting ready to leave. "It's been a long day. Let's find a hotel to stay at."

I guess I'm her hostage now, so I don't really have a choice. We left the house with the door locked and drove away. At the first hotel we spotted, Monika told me to pull in.

"Act normally," she said, "or I will be forced to kill more people."

With that, we checked into a room. 'One bed will be fine,' Monika had told the concierge with a smile. She kept my wallet and credit card in her purse after that.

We arrived at our room without talking. Monika had me open the door and walk in first. Immediately, she placed the 'Do not disturb' card on the handle. "Do you need to use the restroom?" she asked, locking the door shut.

"No."

"Well, this will be your only chance until you either agree to help me, or morning, whichever comes sooner."

"There's no way I'm helping you."

"Fine. Thought I'd try." With an exasperated sigh, she pulled some rope out of her purse. I do not know where she got it. _How long has she been planning this?_

"Arms out," she said, and I had no choice except to submit. She bound my wrists tightly, then tied them to the bedpost. I could either stand stupidly, sit on the bed with my arms pulled uncomfortably across my body, or lie down with them over my head. I chose to lie down.

"I wish it didn't have to be like this," she said, bending down to kiss me on the forehead. "You're the only thing I care about in this world, why do you have to hate me for loving you?"

Monika stood up. "Well, I want to take a shower." She almost walked away but stopped, then, without warning, reached out and groped my crotch.

"Sorry," she said, "couldn't help myself." With that, she turned and left me alone in the room. I tried to struggle against the knots, but it was no use. I could do nothing but listen to the flow of water.

When she reemerged a half-hour later, she pulled out her things, including my old laptop, and plugged it in. She set it across my lap, pocketed the gun, and leaned down to untie me.

"Now then," she said, "you are going to write the next chapter of that fanfiction you've been working on." She laid down beside me, fingers twiddling with the gun, to read over my shoulder.

Having no other choice, I began to write.

Now I've reached the end of the chapter. Is she going to kill me after this? She giggled at reading that. I don't know if that means yes or no. No, she says. I guess she still needs me for something. Once I post this, she's going to tie me back up, then we are going to sleep. Together. And as for what will happen tomorrow, she won't say.

I never believed this would happen. I never thought this could happen. I wish I had never taken her character file to that library. I wish I had never read all those Doki Doki Literature Club fanfictions about how sweet a life it would be to have Monika around. They are all wrong. She is a monster. I think she will never stop killing. To anybody who is listening, please stop writing self-insert OC fanfictions about her coming to real life. It's not about them being against site rules, or overused, or cliché, or the fact that nobody cares about your weeb fantasies. It is a matter that you are selling her your soul.

* * *

*I know Bit Coin doesn't have a space in it like this, but FFN's stupid textbox omits the word if I don't separate the parts like that.

**I couldn't trust myself to remember his exact words, so I merely quoted Dan Salvato's answers that got across similar ideas on an AMA forum on reddit; see link below for reference. (Remember to collapse the spaces.)

www dot reddit dot com / r / DDLC / comments / 7dvb70 / hello _ my _ name _ is _ dan _ salvato _ i _ created _ doki _ doki /


	5. DAY FOUR

Marshmallow, Entropy, Together, Afterimage

* * *

DAY FOUR

March 18, 2018, 7:57 am MDT

Monika and I were just pulling out of the hotel, having hastily packed and breakfasted so we could get on the move. About twenty minutes ago, she had bolted upright in the bed, saying, "I'm an idiot!" and waking me up from a night of little rest in the process. I wasn't talking to her, so I heard her mumble about using my credit card to pay for the hotel. As soon as the body was found, the police would be tracing my card, no doubt. We had to get out. Not only that, it's Sunday. All the banks are closed. We needed cash to survive. That was what she told me. It had been at least fourteen hours since we left **RGFuIFNhbHZhdG/igJlz** place, how long would it take before someone found the body? There was no way to be sure.

"It's not like we could have gone to the bank last night, either," Monika was saying now from the passenger seat. "They were closed by the time we left the house. So even though it was a mental error, it wasn't exactly a tactical error. We couldn't have pulled any cash out regardless. We'll just find a couple ATM's, max out on them, and get out of town. Yeah, we should have enough time for that. We just need enough money to get by for a few days, we abandon the car, maybe get a rental, then we'll have to find somewhere to lay low for a while. Eventually, though, we're going to have to go back to your place, zapdosmaster. And the 3D printer. That's my ticket out of here."

I was barely listening. As far as I was concerned, if we got caught, I could explain the whole thing. Well, it would be hard to get the authorities to believe Monika was created by a 3D printer a couple of days ago. That wouldn't matter too much, though. All I have to do is say I'm her captive, which I could prove with the rope burns on my wrists I purposely gave myself last night. Plus, she's the one with the gun, and the fingerprints on the murder weapon—the scissors. I've got a clean record; as long as I get them Monika, I'll be vindicated.

By mid-morning, we had been able to get about $1200 out of a few ATM's when Monika decided it was time to get out of town. Rather than spend any more time in Boise, she decided to hit the freeway right away. We pulled on to the interstate and headed west.

Unlike the drive to Boise, Monika did not sleep this time. She was on edge, getting especially jumpy whenever we passed a police officer or highway patrol car. The miles passed by to only the sound of the radio. Monika had figured out I was giving her the silent treatment and was listening to news stations for any local stories, perhaps any murders, to fill the noise vacuum. The biggest story that was on was about the national press that a Preston, Idaho science teacher was receiving after he had fed a puppy to a snapping turtle in front of his students a week ago. Then there had been a hit-and-run in Boise, and the NCAA basketball tourney and latest Powerball numbers rounded out the main stories.

I was slightly hoping we would run out of gas and become stranded roadside before she noticed the tank starting to get low. Alas, she inspected the dashboard about three hours in and saw we needed to refuel. "Let's stop and get gas at this next turn," she said. Wordlessly, I obeyed.

The car pulled up alongside a gas meter. When I turned off the ignition and pulled the key out, Monika grabbed me by the wrist. "You know what will happen if you do anything to make a scene, right?"

I jerked my arm away, but she didn't let go.

"I mean it!" she said. "I'm trying to be nice here, you know. I could tie you up in the car and not let you pee. But trust is a two-way street."

I snorted rather than give any of the comebacks that came to mind. Monika looked me over, trying to read me. I did my best not to let her.

"You're being very uncooperative," she voiced. "Listen, if you just promise to behave, I won't even bring the gun with me. I'll leave it in the car. See?" She took the gun and showed me how she could push it into the glove compartment. "I'm willing to compromise."

Rather than give her any satisfaction, I looked pointedly out the window. Monika gave up with a final sigh.

"Fine, you leave me no choice then."

And so she tied me up again to the steering wheel, leaving me in the car while she went inside to pay for gas. She took the keys so I couldn't try to drive away or use them to hack at my ropes. After spending a few minutes inside the gas station, I saw her come back out, then head straight to pumping the gas. She knew what to do, she must have been watching me yesterday. I stared out the windshield as I waited. When she finished, she clambered back into the passenger seat and started to release me.

"Now, have we had any second thoughts?" she asked, wrapping the cords back together and stowing them away in her purse. I was a statue, refusing to acknowledge her. She leaned over to wrap a hand around my cheek, pulling me to look at her. "Please," she said, with genuine pain in her eyes, "I'm tired of this game. I want you back, zapdosmaster…" She seemed to want to say more, but stopped herself. Instead, she leaned forward, pressed her lips against mine. It—I don't know why, maybe because she caught me off guard, but I didn't fight it. It's just weird that twenty-four hours ago, I would have—

I pulled away from her, hating myself for not doing so sooner. It went back to being quiet between us. Monika, uncomfortable with the stillness, gave me the car keys, and I turned on the ignition and pulled out of the station. We sped back on to the interstate to continue pressing westward.

"Look," Monika said, having had enough time to compose her thoughts, "I'm sorry, okay? What do I have to do to get you to talk to me again?"

"Turn yourself over to the police," I said. She frowned.

"I know you're mad about last night, but—"

"But what?" I interjected. "You killed an innocent man! There is no excuse for that!"

"Please don't shout at me," she said in a quiet tone. I didn't think I had shouted, but maybe I had. I exhaled loudly.

After watching me a moment, she said, "What I did, I did it in self-defense."

"Bullcrap. I saw you attack him."

"You're wrong. He was going to kill me. You saw he had the gun. He wasn't going to let us leave until I was dead."

I opened my mouth, then remembered what he told me while Monika was in the bathroom. As much as I hated to admit it, there was a chance she was right. Was he planning to kill her?

"That's right," Monika said, reading my mind again. "Face it. Once we stepped into his house, no one was leaving until someone was dead. I was just making sure it wasn't me. Or you."

I slowly processed what I was hearing. It made a kind of twisted sense.

"Do you—have any proof?" I asked. "That he was going to kill you?"

"Not any proof, _per se,_ " she said. "More like a premonition. Some kind of déjà vu. It's—the Third Eye, right?"

A shiver ran down my spine. I knew those words.

"zapdosmaster?"

She was looking at me curiously. "What is it? Something I said?"

I was on my guard now. I could sense a weird vibe coming from her. "What are you playing at?" I took my eyes off the road long enough to see her enigmatic expression.

"I was going to ask about it last night, but I don't think **RGFu** would have told us anything anyways."

"Ask about what?" I said.

"The Third Eye." Monika brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "It has—something to do with me, doesn't it?"

I didn't know what to say. I could only assume Monika had been reading up on her DDLC fan-theories on that laptop these past couple of days.

"Tell me about the Third Eye, zapdosmaster. I know you know about it. I saw some of your old google searches."

I shook my head. "There's not much to say."

"Humor me."

I paused a moment, thinking how to start. "There's a Doki Doki Literature Club fan theory about the Third Eye. I learned about it on _The Game Theorist's_ YouTube videos. There are a few points in the game where a Third Eye is hinted at. Yuri's book. A poster in the background of one of the fan-pack bonus pictures. Your character file." I glanced at her. "According to MatPat's theory, there are two possible explanations for how you came to be self-aware. One is that your AI comes from another game, a game hinted at in clues in the game files, to be released by Team Salvato sometime this year. If your character file were supposed to be from another game, one more complicated and with a smarter AI built in to handle more diverse character choices, that could explain how you—and none of the other girls—realized you were actually in a video game.

"The second explanation is even more compelling. After analyzing the data from Sayori's, Yuri's, and Natsuki's character files, MatPat came to believe that Team Salvato's upcoming game is actually about the religious camp from Yuri's book. A girl named 'Libitina' is supposedly the subject of the human experiments going on there, where the researchers are trying to open Libitina's Third Eye, with fatal consequences. According to his theory, the known details about Libitina—her body size, age, even character traits—all fit a younger Yuri to a 'T.' If so, if these experiments successfully opened Yuri's Third Eye, she would have gained psychic powers beyond her control that bled over into the lives of the people around her. Yuri may have been the real reason why you saw the vision you described in your poem, 'Hole in the Wall.' Her latent psychic powers opened your mind, allowing you to see yourself as you really were: a character in a visual novel. Stuck in a video game. But, hey, that's just a theory." (A _game theory!_ I couldn't help repeating in my mind.)

Monika was nodding her head. She must have heard all this before. "And—do you believe it?"

"No," I quickly answered. "I think it's a stretch at best. MatPat was grasping at straws to find any in-canon reason you were endowed with sentience other than the obvious, 'it was just a game written to mess with our brains' explanation. However, they are nice Easter eggs that make a pretty cool advertisement for Team Salvato's next game."

"Okay," she said, "suppose MatPat got it right. That the 'Libitina' story is Yuri's backstory and I had my first vision soon after I formed the Lit Club, the day Yuri joined, in fact."

My eyes widened in surprise. "Really?"

Monika nodded. "Actually, I don't know anything about 'Libitina' or 'Elyssa,' or Yuri's connection to them."

"But the part about having your first vision? That's true?"

"That part's true."

"Whoa," I breathed.

"Get ready for a twist," she said. "Last night, it happened again. I had an epiphany. I only used to have those around Yuri, but, since I've been here, that hasn't happened, of course." She swallowed. "When we were with **RGFu** , I had another one. Maybe he had the Third Eye, too, or something, that affected me, but regardless of why, it happened. I saw into his mind. What he thought of me. I saw where we really are: another reality, but not the true reality."

"Oh, here we go again," I said. "This is real! You're paranoid, you got stuck in one false reality, now you can't stop thinking everywhere you go that this is just another fake reality. Well, it's not. The layers don't keep peeling back. You hit the surface of the onion."

"No. I saw it. This is another layer."

"Oh, okay. I get it," I said sarcastically. "We're all a projection in an alien simulation, is that it? Hi, aliens! Can you see me waving? Am I breaking the fifth wall? Are you trying to trick Rick into giving you his secret formula for rocket fuel again? Or, maybe, we're in the Matrix? Is Lawrence Fishburne going to come find us? Is Agent Smith, aka Elrond, aka Red Skull, aka Hugo Weaving, coming to kill us? Should we go meet Keanu Reeves next? Do you want to kill him, too? Are you Agent Smith, Monika?"

She was not amused. "Are you done?"

"I don't know, let me think of more movies I can reference. I know, Inception! This is all a dream, right?"

"Stop."

"Or a dream inside of a dream, which is, itself, a dream inside of _another_ dream?"

"I couldn't get you to say a word earlier, now you won't shut up!"

I laughed, happy to get her angry again. "As I was saying, this is real. I don't know why **RGFu** pulled a gun on me, but if he was trying to kill you, maybe he had good reasons. He created you, he knows—knew—you better than anyone. He knew you would continue killing anyone you needed to to get what you want, that you'd have these perpetual delusions about reality. Maybe you sensed that. Maybe you did kill him in self-defense. Or maybe you were hoping to get some revenge. After all, you yourself said that being trapped in the game was a living hell, right? I first thought you wanted to meet **RGFuIFNhbHZhdG8=** for the same reasons an adopted child would want to meet their biological parents, but I guess it was just for revenge instead." Monika had long since crossed her arms and stared out the passenger side window.

"I'm starting to have a difficult time loving you right now," was all she said.

"Funny thing is, I was falling in love with you, fast. If you hadn't decided to go crazy and kill a man, we could have been together."

She lifted a hand to her face to catch a tear. "I'm so, so sorry."

Once again, it became oppressively silent, apart from the roar of the engine. Only this time, I was starting to wish I had gotten out to pee after all.

Neither of us spoke for the next two increasingly painful hours. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. "We are gonna need to take another pit stop," I said.

"It looks like we still have a quarter of a tank."

"That's not what I'm talking about."

"Oh. I gave you your chance, at the last stop. Hey, wait, no, NO!"

I pulled into the nearest off-ramp, ignoring her injunctions. "I'm driving," I said. "I'm in charge of when we refill."

Monika sighed. "Fine. But remember, if you try to make a scene, I'll have to shoot someone. If you don't want that on your conscience, you best behave."

When we pulled into the closest gas station, I couldn't stop to make a scene if I wanted to—well, I did want to, but knew I couldn't—I meant I had to run to the bathroom to make it. I stepped out feeling much refreshed, and found Monika waiting there to keep me on a tight leash. We paid cash at the register and went back out to refuel the car. There were two other cars stopped to get gas as well, but I couldn't risk Monika harming anyone, so I stood by the meter, watching the numbers tick ever higher. Soon as it was done, we got back in the car, and Monika smiled at me.

"See?" she said. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

It had taken three tanks—two refills—of gas to get to Boise, so this tank was probably going to get us back to my hometown. I wondered if we were on the FBI's Most Wanted yet. Had the body been found? Had the police found Monika's and my fingerprints? Was a squadron staking out my apartment right now, waiting there in case we showed up? I hoped Monika hadn't thought these things through and maybe we would get captured; but she probably had, and had a plan, knowing her. I decided I would proceed as if I were driving back home until she told me otherwise.

We were well past the Idaho-Oregon border now, and the lush green landscape had started to return. It was getting to be past two, Pacific time, when a heavy thunderstorm slowed down traffic to around forty-five miles per hour. We waded through twenty-five minutes of rainwater, windshield wipers cranked to full tempo, before it lightened up enough that we could pick our speed back up to around sixty. By three, we had come out of the rainstorm and were making good time again. We'd be arriving in Portland in about an hour, from there it would be maybe another hour to my home.

Monika had turned the radio back on by the time we got out of Portland. Other than that, the drive was uneventful. Being close to home cheered my spirits up, though. I started going through scenarios in my head for how I could escape Monika and get a hold of the police. Maybe I could try to grab the gun from her, or knock it out of her hand next time she tried to tie me up. Physically overpowering her shouldn't be a problem, I had to weigh close to twice what she did. (That thought made me remember the image of Buffsuki, causing me to roll my eyes at myself. I hadn't worked out since the summer after I graduated high school.) I wished I could remember if she was keeping the safety on or off. Forcing the gun away from her with the safety off could still get myself shot.

At last, the exhausting drive was over, and I took the off-ramp to my hometown. Monika stretched in her seat as we settled into the evening traffic of downtown. She reached forward to turn down the radio, then spoke. "We can't stay at your place anymore, we'll need to find another hotel to stay in," she said. "What's the closest hotel to your apartment?"

"You know, I'd like to help, but someone left my smartphone in the sink back in Boise, so I can't look any hotels up," I sassed.

"Okay, then we'll just stop in the first one we see. Until then, don't drive down the streets to your place. If we've been had, then your street will be watched."

That confirmed my suspicions she had a plan. I drove along Main Street for a couple blocks before we spotted a hotel. Monika told me to pull in. We quickly got a room and settled in with the few things we had, like last night.

Again, Monika's first move was to secure me to the bed. I sat on the bed and held my arms out, watching her closely, trying to find an opening. Like always, Monika put the gun in her pocked before creeping close to me, with rope in hand. As soon as she was close enough to reach me, I made my move.

I tried to grab her by the wrists, but she anticipated me too quickly. She jumped away, causing me to get a poor grip. She dropped the rope and wriggled to get out of my hold. I couldn't get a good grip, she was writhing and twisting too much. I tried to reach for her pocket and the gun instead. I couldn't quite get my hand in the pocket from across her body, and that gave her enough time to kick me in the shin. I yelped in pain, causing me to let go. With one swift motion, she drew the gun and aimed it at me. She was much faster and stronger than she looked. I stopped nursing my foot and held up my hands in surrender.

"I thought you were being a little too quiet," she breathed, lowering the gun slowly. "Pick up the rope, and put it on the table."

I did as I was told, then looked back at her.

"Now sit back down on the bed, and we'll try this again."

As soon as I was back on the bed, she cautiously put the gun back in her pocket and stayed out of my reach as she went to get the rope. "If you try that again," she said, "I will shoot you."

I knew that if I had the element of surprise and couldn't grab her before, there was no way I could do it now. I let her tie my wrists again, then bind them to the headboard. Once I was tightly fastened, she pulled out the laptop and laid down on the bed beside me.

She logged on to the hotel's Wi-Fi and did a search of Boise news. I looked through the headlines with her, none of which indicated any murders had been reported or bodies discovered. What were the chances of that? I didn't know how often **RGFuIFNhbHZhdG8=** had guests, or if he lived alone, though he seemed to, based on what I saw yesterday. It was a Sunday, so perhaps guests were unlikely to call on him today. Did he have family in the area? When would they check on him? What about business partners? If he wasn't returning any calls, how long would it be before someone went over to his house to look for him? It was impossible to say. From the headlines though, it looked like he hadn't been discovered yet.

Monika seemed satisfied with that. She put aside the laptop and stood up. "If we're lucky, the police still haven't found the body, which means that our trail is quickly growing cold. They may not have anybody watching your apartment yet. This could be my only chance to go there."

"What do you need from my place?" I asked. We had packed plenty of changes of clothes for the trip.

"Your storage drive with my character file," she said. "That's why we came all the way back here instead of going to Canada, Wyoming, or New Mexico."

Instead of explaining more, she took the gun, my keyring, and the hotel card key, and put them all in her purse, before grabbing her coat. "Oh, one more thing," she said, doubling back to the computer. She pulled up google maps, and I recognized the layout of the city. She hovered the mouse over the location of my apartment, then over the spot where our hotel was. I assumed she was memorizing the route.

"Okay, it looks like there's a McDonald's on the way," she said. "If you are good, I'll bring you home some dinner." She patted my chest and shut the laptop.

"Be careful out there," I said as she strode towards the door. "It's getting late, and this place is as bad as anywhere else at night when it comes to sexual assaults."

She stopped and turned to smile at me. "Thank you for caring," she said.

I threw my head back against my pillow with a growl. I had forgotten I wasn't supposed to be helping her, and she caught me.

She quietly stepped out and closed the door behind her, leaving me tied up with no light but what shone through the window. "You could have at least turned the TV on," I called after her, knowing she was probably long gone.

An hour or so passed. The room grew steadily darker, soon everything was enveloped in shadow. I was starving. I was also tired from all the driving, and finally let myself fall asleep to keep my mind off my stomach.

It felt like I had been asleep for a while when the door opened and the light switch flicked on, waking me from my nap. I looked at the LED clock on the nightstand; it read quarter-after-eight. She had been gone for two-and-a-half hours.

Monika placed the 'Do Not Disturb' card on the doorknob and locked the door closed before collapsing on the chair across the room. "You were right," she said, placing her purse on the desk the TV was on, "I had to flash my gun at two obnoxious hooligans. But, I got it." She extracted my thumb drive from her purse to show it to me. "And, I brought you some food. Five cheeseburgers, they're not too cold yet."

She untied me so I could eat, then laid down on the bed. "After you eat," she said, "please go take a shower. You stink." I took an enormous bite rather than say anything.

It took little time for me to inhale the food. Monika had also bought herself a cup of coffee, she sipped it while she got back on the laptop. She watched me carefully as I grabbed a change of clothes and let myself into the bathroom, making sure I didn't try and bolt out the room instead. While the thought did cross my mind, I was still feeling too humbled from Monika besting me in my previous escape attempt, and I knew another attempt like that would most likely get somebody hurt. I needed to wait for a better opportunity.

Taking a shower was the first time I had been away from Monika, yet not tied up, all day. I took my time relishing my privacy, standing under the hot, flowing water, taking stock of my life. I could have fallen back asleep in there, now that my belly was full. Eventually I decided I was ready for bed and shut the water off. I toweled down, put on clean clothes, and exited the bathroom. Monika hadn't moved from the bed; she hit a few keys as I walked over while stifling a yawn.

"I'm ready to go back to sleep," I told her.

"First things first," she said, sliding the laptop over my way. "You need to write today's chapter."

I rubbed my eyes and looked away. "Is that really a priority now? Why are you so obsessed with my fanfiction?"

"You should have been able to figure it out by now," she said, "but I guess you really are stuck viewing your tiny reality as everything. For my story to go on, your story has to go on, at least for now. So, write."

"Why don't you just do it? Especially since you're probably gonna insist on making a bunch of changes to it like in the last chapter."

"No, it has to be you writing it."

"Okay, whatever." I sat down and began typing. "This chapter is going to be really boring, nothing has happened. All we did was drive and fight all day. It's blatant filler."

"That's okay," Monika said, watching the screen over my shoulder. "It had to set up the stuff that's going to happen tomorrow, when I carry out my final plans."

"And what are your plans, exactly?"

"Oh, I think your readers should know by now. I've dropped plenty of clues. But just to be sure, give them a message for me. Ask them to try to persuade you that you are living in a fantasy world where nothing is real, as a favor to me. Tell them to explain to you in their reviews what is really going on: that this is a faux reality, a self-insert fanfiction. Maybe if enough people talk about it in their reviews, the real zapdosmaster will have a change of heart and make your character more willing to help me, zapdosmaster. That will make everything a lot easier for me tomorrow."

Since Monika is so intent on me delivering this message, as crazy as it sounds, I did it anyways. Frankly, I'd rather you helped me out by convincing Monika to turn herself over to the police in your reviews. And for that matter, if the police are looking for me, be my corroborating witnesses. You guys are the only ones who know the truth about what happened.

Deciding there was nothing else left to say, I wrapped things up and did a quick spell check before saving the document, marking the end of another chapter.

* * *

 **You have unlocked a special poem! Would you like to read it? (Remember to collapse the spaces)**

 **docs dot google dot com / document / d / 1VfBWxAJaTzv2rf58dNhhe8 - Ni2lqoTtz _ qiSH9Di3Uk / edit**


	6. DAY FIVE

Marriage, Existence, Tears, Anime

* * *

DAY FIVE

March 19, 2018, 7:32 am PDT

I hardly slept better last night than I did the night before. It's hard to get comfortable when your arms are pinned over your head. You have to spend the whole night on your back, with no freedom to roll on your side or stomach. I was sore and restless and had to pee really bad, but for the last half-hour Monika hadn't shown any signs of waking. She rhythmically breathed in and out to my right, facing away from me, laying on her side. I couldn't stand the discomfort any longer.

"Monika?" I whispered somewhat.

I heard her sharply inhale, annoyed at my rude awakening. "What?"

"Can you let me up? I have to go to the bathroom."

She laid still indecisively. "Can't you wait?"

"I've waited as long as I could. I don't sleep in as late as you do."

She buried her face into her pillow.

"If you don't let me up, I'm honestly going to wet the bed any second."

Monika muttered something about coffee under her breath and pushed herself up. She rolled over and I saw her bloodshot eyes as she moved to untie me. As soon as I was free, I got up and made straight for the bathroom. When I finished and came out, she was sitting there, waiting for me.

"Okay," she said, "are you done? 'Cause I'd really like to get back to sleep now."

I stretched, grunting. "I'm ready to get up. You can go back to bed if you want, I'll be quiet."

She narrowed her eyes at me. "Don't make me shoot you." Somebody was irritable from lack of sleep. She shouldn't have had that coffee so late.

"Hey, take it easy," I said, waving my hands in a gesture of truce. I didn't want to push my luck this early. I let her retie me, and my shoulders immediately began aching in protest of having to be back in that position again. Monika laid back down and her breathing quickly returned to a soft rhythm. I stared wide awake at the ceiling, imagining that my stomach pangs were starting to match those of my sore arms.

Today is Monday. That meant I had school today, my first class started in a few minutes. It was weird wishing I could just be going to school like any normal day today. Grades and homework were not my biggest stressor anymore, funny what a couple days can do to your perspective.

The minutes passed slowly. I was bored out of my mind. I tried closing my eyes, but sleep never came. I just laid there thinking. I knew bringing Monika into this world would change my life, but I never thought it would be in this way, with me tied up as her prisoner, on the run like a couple of criminals. At some point, Monika rolled over and put her arm around my torso. A half-hour or more later, she wrapped a leg over my thigh as well.

I didn't know if she had saddled this close to me consciously or otherwise, but I couldn't move to get her off. My body started to get warm. Dang it! Despite all she had done, her closeness was arousing me, and I hated it. Curse her beauty. It was my hormones' fault. I knew better than to be in love with her at this point. I was literally sleeping with a psycho serial killer. (Not metaphorically-slash-euphemistically, we hadn't done anything like that, just literally sleeping in the same bed as each other.) But there was no use trying to tell my body that. My heart rate quickened uncontrollably.

I tried to take deep breaths and ignore it. Eventually, my heart rate had mostly returned to normal, though never entirely. I relaxed, and my thoughts turned to the game, Doki Doki Literature Club. Suppose I had picked another girl to bring to real life instead of Monika. Things would have probably turned out better. Sayori could've been a good choice. She would have been the only other girl who wouldn't have needed a very long conversation explaining that the world she had known her whole life hadn't been real. Choosing Sayori could turn out to be playing with fire, though. You'd have to be aware of her depression at all times. On the one hand, it probably would rarely get as bad as it did in the game with Monika's tampering taken out of the equation. Then again, the very fact you know and are trying to help Sayori would drive her further into depression, if MC's actions are any indicator. And I have never experienced depression, so I could never understand her well enough to truly help her whenever she needed it.

If Sayori was playing with fire, Yuri would be playing with—well, I was about to say knives, but I caught myself. Yuri's mental problems are the closest to the surface of all the girls'. Granted, if I had to pick, I'd say Yuri was the flat-out prettiest, yet in actuality she would probably be my last choice. I wouldn't be able to handle the obsessiveness, the eye twitching, and least of all, the self-mutilation. Even if Monika wasn't magnifying her character flaws, she still needs serious professional help. And while I would love to have her read my fanfictions and tell me what she thinks, to be honest she is probably a little too smart for me. We wouldn't be all that intellectually compatible.

No, Natsuki would probably be my second pick after Monika. Which is funny, because she is the girl I was the least attracted to initially. Once the game got going, though, her story ended up pulling a surprising amount of sympathy from me. We share a lot of nerdy interests, too; she has to have at least some interest in Pokemon if she likes manga so much. I could overcome my aversion to smaller, more cutesy girls in her case. The only thing holding me back is her age. She needs a little time to mature. And, you know, be legal to date.

But I _had_ to pick Monika. I thought she would be the most normal of the four, look how wrong I was. I mean, as crazy as the other girls might get, I can't see any of them killing people. Monika does it without even feeling guilty. Well, maybe she feels guilty about it sometimes, it's hard to tell. She's an enigma, like always. That's probably why I chose her. Well, that, and the two other _obvious_ reasons—you know what I mean, don't make me say it. It'll make me feel worse.

Wait, that's it! My mind started racing.

Guilt! That's how I stop Monika! I have to stir up the guilt she feels about killing her friends and creator! I know she feels it deep inside of her, somewhere. I remember very well how after deleting her, she mentioned she couldn't bring herself to delete all their files permanently, that's why she was able to restore them before the final act of the game. If I could get her to remember how that felt, maybe it would be enough for her to come to her senses, at least long enough for me to take control of the situation. But how would I do it? I pondered that question for a while.

My stiff shoulders and empty stomach pulled me out of my thoughts to look at the time. It was nearly eleven. I flexed my body to try to stretch what muscles I could, and Monika stirred at my movement. She was still halfway tangled with me. She moved her hand to rub her eyes, but was otherwise laying partially on me when she opened them to look at me. "Now, that's not a bad way to wake up," she said.

"Oh, so you still like me after all?" I asked.

"I'll always love you," she informed me. "You're the one who saved me from that virtual prison. And while you have been being a brat the last couple of days, it's not your fault. Sorry for snapping at you earlier. You have a right to be angry with me, and it's not like we have any free will in this world anyways. You'll always be you, and no matter what, I'll always love you." With that, she kissed my cheek. Then she cradled tighter against me and rested her head back down on my ribs. "I could stay right here with you, like this, forever."

For how much she was cuddling me now, I was proud of myself for how little my body reacted physically this time. My pulse hadn't spiked nearly as badly as it did earlier. I let her rest for a moment, but I was growing impatient. I opened my mouth to speak.

"So, when are we gonna—?"

"Do you want to have—?"

We simultaneously started talking and cut each other off.

"You go first," Monika said, looking into my face. She was slightly blushing.

"I was just wondering when we were gonna go get breakfast."

"Oh, ahaha! Sorry, I forgot, you have been awake this whole time, huh?" She sat up and stretched. "Yeah, we should go get something to eat. Or, maybe…" Her voice trailed off as she stood and paced to the entertainment center to pick up the hotel pamphlet. "Actually, I've never ordered room service before, we should try that!"

"Whatever, as long as it's food," I said.

Monika sat next to me and we looked over the menu, deciding on what to get. Once we made our choices, she called the front desk to order. While we waited for the food to arrive, I laid in bed (not like I had any other choice) while Monika got cleaned up. She came out of the bathroom only when we heard the knock on the door, taking it all from the server in the hallway so he wouldn't see me tied up in the room. Monika brought the food in, set it down on the table, and untied me.

It felt so good to get out of that position, I took a minute to stretch before inspecting the food, although it smelled good. I was still rolling my shoulders out as I sat down and pulled a plate over. Monika was booting up the laptop and pouring herself some coffee. She didn't learn her lesson from it keeping her up so late last night, apparently.

Before letting myself get too lost in inhaling my food, I remembered that I needed to be searching for a chink in Monika's armor, an opening to guilt trip her. What should I say? Now was the perfect time, the noises of clinking forks were all there were. I couldn't think of anything subtle enough to go off of. What could there be in this situation I could use to make Monika relate to her friends back at the club? Besides something about how this good food reminded me of Natsuki (of course, I can always relate anything to food), I had nothing. There had to be a better way than that.

"Um," I said, clearing my throat after a gulp of fruit juice, "so how is everything?"

Monika raised an eyebrow. "I should be asking you, you're the one who is always hungry."

"Oh, yeah," I replied.

"Oops! Sorry! I didn't mean to say like I was calling you fat, or anything," she hastily added.

I waved it off. "I knew what you meant. Yeah, to address the elephant in the room, we need to figure something out about this 'holding me hostage' business."

"Oh my gosh!" Monika's eyes went wide, but not at me—at the computer screen.

"What is it?"

Her pupils were scanning back and forth in a frenzy. "It's—your story," she said. "You got a message from one of the admins on fanfiction dot net." She made eye contact with me. "They're saying your story is against site rules. You have until tomorrow to remove or change it or you will be locked out of your account."

"What?" I said. "What rules?"

"Um, let's see," she looked back at the screen. "Giving too low of a content rating, using a self-insert character, portraying people from real life as your characters, threatening your readers, plagiarism…"

"It's rated T!"

"Guess they think it should be M."

Maybe it should, I thought. Things are getting pretty out of control. I made a mental note to inform my readers I would be changing it as of this chapter's posting. "And threatening my readers? What is that about? I haven't done that."

"That one is on me. As for the one saying you wrote about real people, that's just ridiculous. But, of course, they don't know that."

"And plagiarizing? Seriously? You watched me write half of it, you know that's not true! It just so happens that basically _every_ Monika irl fic is kind of the same! That's like saying Zack Snyder plagiarized Avengers because Justice League is another superhero team-up movie!" I know it's just a story, I shouldn't get upset about it, but still. I worked hard on writing this. "I knew I should have published it on AO3 instead, but I'm still waiting for them to send me that invite…" I stared at the wall for a minute.

"Fine," I said, throwing down my fork. "Take the story down. I prefer writing Phineas and Ferb fanfiction anyways. I'll stick with what I know how to do. Besides, I'm new to the DDLC fandom, so it's not like I have a reputation to keep up, or anything."

"You can't give up!" Monika said. "I need you to finish writing it! You can finish it today!"

"I—what is there to write about?" I asked. "We're not doing anything, just hiding in a hotel. There's no closure."

"There will be," Monika said. "I suppose it's time for my 'evil monologue'—time to tell you my plans. I'll have to carry them out today. And then you write it up, post it, story's over, and it doesn't matter if it gets taken down or not. Because by then, I'll be free. Finally."

I sat a little straighter at hearing that. "All right, let's hear it."

Monika took a deep breath and looked at me me. "We're going to play Doki Doki Literature Club."

If I had been taking another drink of juice, I would have performed a spit-take. "What?"

"Yes, I downloaded it on this computer last night. But that's not important." She cleared her throat. "The thing is, to get into the real world, I need Yuri—or rather, her Third Eye. So we're going to take her character file back to that 3D printer and do the same thing you did to bring me here to her."

"And by 'we,' you mean 'you forcing me at gunpoint.'"

"Or you could help me of your own free will. Because you love me."

"Pft. So, I bring another psycho girl into the real world to terrorize more people with her evil psychic powers, great plan."

"That's step one."

"And step two is?"

"Step two is, well, a little more convoluted. It's my only chance of getting out of here alive, though, so I have to take it."

I gave her an unamused look.

"Step two is this. I get Yuri to tap into her Third Eye and use her psychic powers to switch my consciousness with the consciousness of someone in the real world. zapdosmaster's world, the world your readers all live in."

"Oh, right, that makes sense," I sarcastically said, having no idea what she's talking about at all.

"Getting Yuri to open her Third Eye is going to be the hard part. I'm not sure how to go about doing that yet. I definitely couldn't have done it in the game, though; I didn't really have the right equipment, and the world in that reality wasn't quite tangible enough for her powers to be strong enough to pull it off. Having the third dimension ought to help amplify that."

"Or you could just 3D print yourself into the 'real world,'" I said, making air quotes with my fingers. "Ever think of that one?"

Monika stared at me. "zapdosmaster, let's be honest here, 3D printers don't really work like that. That kind of technology is a hundred years away. At least. It only worked here as a gimmick. Or, look at it this way. The fact that I'm here is evidence that you're not in the real world, that none of this is real."

I opened my mouth, then shut it again. I didn't have anything to say to that. Her logic was undeniable. So how did it still make absolutely zero sense?

Monika reached across the table to put her hand on my forearm as it rested on the edge of the table. "Come with me, zapdosmaster. We can be together. Yuri can switch your mind with the real zapdosmaster's, and we'll leave him trapped in this world! Resign him to the fate he wants to torture us with! Plus, it wouldn't be the same without you, I can't stand the thought of being alone."

I looked down at my food, thinking. This is crazy, but what if she's right? By all accounts, that 3D printer thing should not have worked. But—how could this be anything but real life? I've lived it, experienced it, breathed it my whole life. I know my memories are real. I know I can trust them. Can't I?

"I almost wish I could believe you," I finally said. "I just can't accept that this isn't the real world. That's impossible."

"Trust me," she said, patting my arm. "If not, then at least wait until I make this all happen before you give me your final answer. It's not like I'm going to give you a choice. I'm not going to lose you."

Not knowing how else to react, I stuffed as much pancake in my face as I could to hide my unease. Nothing like a tense, dramatic moment to take another bite of food; that's me.

Monika had turned her attention back to the computer. "Okay, so, the question is, at what point in the game is Yuri the closest to opening her Third Eye? That's when we'll want to extract her file."

"Beats me," I said, unhelpfully.

Monika typed into the laptop. "Google recommends meditation. Years of it. We don't have time for that."

"What?"

"Oh, sorry," Monika said, "I didn't explain my thought process there. I googled 'how to open your third eye,' and that's the first result."

I didn't give the results more than a passing glance as Monika angled the screen so I could see. "Chakras? Nice," I said between mouthfuls.

"What was that YouTube theory you watched? Maybe it has answers."

"Game Theorists?"

Monika found the video and played it. I half-listened while I finished cleaning my plate.

" _Mattypatty?_ What a weirdo, is there really a version of me somewhere that fell in love with him?" She wore a look of disgust.

I snickered. "Yeah, he livestreamed his playthrough of the game. It's pretty entertaining to watch."

Monika rolled her eyes and doubled the playback speed to cut to the chase. She paused the video after a couple minutes. "There's an idea," she said. I hadn't been paying attention to the video, so I gave her an inquisitive look.

"We should check the Project Libitina file," Monika decided. "Maybe it has some clues."

"Sure," I humored her.

I filled my cup with more juice while Monika scanned the page. "'Third Eye Activation Test… Passed, Third Eye Suppression Test... Failed,'" she read aloud. "But how did they actually carry out the tests? That's all I want to know! What activates the Third Eye?"

"Probably trauma," I mentioned.

"I need specifics! Grr!"

I narrowed my eyes. "Monika, those tests—they were killing Libitina! Look, 'continuing to administer these tests will only accelerate the deterioration of Libitina's health.' You're not thinking of, like, _torturing_ Yuri, are you?"

Monika paused a little longer than I liked. "Not if—no, no! Of course not!" She looked away from me.

I stood and threw up my arms in exasperation. "Here we go again! Using your friends, hurting them, to get what you want! Just like in the game! Nothing's changed!" I started to pace back and forth. "I thought, maybe, you felt sorry for what you made them do to themselves. I guess I should have known better. I should have known from the way you described Sayori's hanging herself. So cold, so unaffected by her pain. How can I believe you ever cared about anybody in the Literature Club? How can I believe you really love me?" I cast myself down on the bed.

"I never want to be with you," I said with a tone of finality. "There is never going to be an 'us.' If you're going to shoot me, just do it now, and get this nightmare over with."

Monika sat expressionless. "I wonder if Yuri's Third Eye can wipe your memory," I heard her whisper.

 **.repsihw reh dreah I ",yromem ruoy epiw nac eyE drihT s'iruY fi rednow I" .sselnoisserpxe tas akinoM**

" **.htiw revo eramthgin siht teg dna ,won ti od tsuj ,em toohs ot gniog er'uoy fI .'su' an eb ot gniog reven si erehT" .ytilanif fo enot a htiw dias I ",uoy htiw eb ot tnaw reven I"**

 **.deb eht no nwod flesym tsac I "?em evol yllaer uoy eveileb I nac woH ?bluC erutaretiL eht ni ydobyna tuoba derac reve uoy eveileb I nac woH .niap reh yb detceffanu os ,dloc oS .flesreh gnignah s'iroyaS debircsed uoy yaw eht morf nwonk evah dluohs I .retteb nwonk evah dluohs I sseug I .sevlesmeht ot od meht edam uoy tahw rof yrros tlef uoy ,ebyam ,thguoht I" .htrof dna kcab ecap ot detrats I "!degnahc s'gnihtoN !emag eht ni ekil tsuJ !tnaw uoy tahw teg ot ,meht gnitruh ,sdnierf ruoy gnisU !niaga og ew ereH" .noitarepsaxe ni smra ym pu werht dna doots I**

 **.em morf yawa dekool ehS "!ton esruoc fO !on ,on—fi toN" .dekil I naht regnol elttil a desuap akinoM**

" **?uoy era ,iruY** _ **gnirutrot**_ **,ekil ,fo gnikniht ton er'uoY '.htlaeh s'anitibiL fo noitaroireted eht etarelecca ylno lliw stset eseht retsinimda ot gniunitnoc' ,kooL !anitibiL gnillik erew yeht—stset esoht ,akinoM" .seye ym deworran I**

" **!rrG !scificeps deen I"**

 **.denoitnem I ",amuart ylbaborP"**

" **?eyE drihT eht setavitca tahW !wonk ot tnaw I lla s'thaT ?stset eht tuo yrrac yllautca yeht did woh tuB" .duola dear ehs "',deliaF …tseT noisserppuS eyE drihT ,dessaP …tseT noitavitcA eyE drihT'" .egap eht dennacs akinoM elihw eciuj erom hitw puc ym dellif I**

 **.reh deromuh I ",eruS"**

" **.seulc emos sah ti ebyaM" .dediced akinoM ",elif anitibiL tcejorP eht kcehc dluohs eW"**

 **.kool evitisiuqni na reh evag I os ,oediv eht ot noitnetta gniyap neeb t'ndah I .dias ehs ",aedi na s'erehT"**

"There's an idea," she said. I wasn't entirely sure what we had just been talking about, so I gave her an inquisitive look.

"You know what?" Monika said. "We should just play the game through to the end, then copy her file over. The same way you did when you copied my file. Just to play it safe."

"Ah, yes, variable minimization, sounds like as good an idea as any," I agreed.

Monika had already started up the game, and I heard the familiar plucks of a harp string and the sharp whistling notes of a flute accompany the disclaimer notice I'd read a hundred times.


	7. DAY FIVE - PART TWO

DAY FIVE—PART TWO

'" _I'm surprised you didn't bring Sayori with you."_

'" _Yeah, she overslept again… That dummy. You'd think on days this important, she'd try a little harder…" I say that, but I suddenly remember what Sayori told me yesterday… And I suddenly feel awful, knowing it's not nearly that simple for her. I only said it because it's the way I'm used to thinking. But… Maybe I should have gone to wake her up after all?_

'" _Ahaha. You should take a little responsibility for her, zapdosmaster. I mean, especially after your exchange with her yesterday… You kind of left her hanging this morning, you know?"'_

"Why'd you stop skipping?" Monika asked me. "We're in a hurry, zapdosmaster."

"You can't play through Doki Doki without stopping to appreciate the most iconic scene in the game," I said. "Poor, poor Sayori! Hits me right in the feels every time!" Indeed, my hands still shook slightly every time I got to this point.

"On my first playthrough, that line is where I knew what had happened." I pointed at the screen. "I took the Sayori route, too, in lieu of the nonexistent route for you. So it shook me hard. I thought by telling her MC loved her, I had saved her. I thought I had beat the game. Instead, the game beat me." I started slugging the space bar again.

"If only she had stayed in the club a little longer the day she left early," Monika said. "If she had been there to stop Yuri and Natsuki from fighting over who you would help prepare for the festival, I would have been able to spend the weekend with you. And none of this would have ever needed to happen."

I turned to Monika. "Weren't you the one who was making her depression worse in the first place?" Coincidentally, Sayori's poem had just popped onto the screen. "Get out of my head. Get out of my head. Get out of my head," I read.

A shadow crossed Monika's face. "I made mistakes, I admit that. Hindsight is twenty-twenty. I panicked when I realized Sayori had a crush on you, then when you started spending all that time together… I tried to respect the club members' privacies by staying out of their character files, for a long time, but I couldn't take it any longer. I looked at Sayori's, and her depression was the first thing I saw. It went downhill from there."

"What did you tell her that day?" I asked, resuming my hammering away on the space bar.

"Um, I told her—I told her about my feelings for you. I pretended not to know about the feelings she had for you. I asked her what she thought, as the person who knew you best, I should do to get you to like me. She just gave me some vague and general answers, and said she hoped we could make each other happy."

I was in Sayori's house now. MC's internal dialogue was going on forever. This game's genius is its mastery of the building-up of tension. Everyone knew what was going to happen. Every click, you think some jump scare is going to pop out at you from the darkness. On and on, click after click. Then, when you finally drop your guard, the white light surrounding Sayori's lifeless body lights up the screen; not a jump scare at all, but something far more disturbing.

I swallowed as I watched it happen again. This never gets any less creepy no matter how many times you play it. The tune of "Your Reality" glitching and morphing into a slow, tinkling, music box tone playing in the background, accompanied by a voice of angelic innocence, captures the breathlessness of the scene with nauseating lucidity. I watched Monika, who was staring at the screen somberly. It's hard to read her. Maybe my idea was working.

"Poor Sayori," I said again, waiting for the game to reboot itself. I turned the skip function back on, and the game started to fly by once more.

"Sayori's file will have been deleted now," I said, leaning back. I felt Monika nod to my side. "What's it like, watching it from this side of the screen?"

"Hm, it's like—watching a movie you've already seen," she said, while locking her eyes with mine. I thought I saw her raise an eyebrow ever so slightly.

With skip turned on, it didn't take long to slog through the story. Since routes didn't matter at this point, I ended up speed clicking through the poem writing mini-games and within minutes, we were approaching Yuri's death scene. The skip stopped at the prompt, 'Do you accept my confession?', giving me the options for 'yes' and 'no.'

"Why do you even ask, Yuri? No matter what answer I give you, you're going to pull out a knife and stab yourself to death," I lamented. "Can we pull her out now, to save her from herself?"

Monika paused to put her hand to her chin. "Do you think she's closer to unleashing her Third Eye?"

"I don't know… I just thought—"

"What? That she shouldn't have to go through any more pain?" A sudden seriousness entered into her voice. "Remind me again how many times you have played through this game?"

"Um, at least four or five times, I guess."

"Okay, so let me see if I'm understanding this correctly," Monika said, turning to make sure she had my attention. "You restarted the game over and over again, knowing beforehand _exactly_ what was going to happen to the girls, right?"

I stalled. "Y-yes."

"And, am I assuming correctly that your motivation was purely personal entertainment?"

"Well, I—"

Monika shook her head. "Okay, then. You admit you purposefully took actions that you knew would result in their deaths. Multiple times. At this point, I think we can say you played as much a hand in their deaths as I did. The only difference is you did it for fun. So abandon the hypocrisy of trying to make me feel guilty about what I did, zapdosmaster. We're still going through with my plan, no matter what you think. I'm getting out of this story, and you're coming with me."

She reached over me to move the mouse cursor to 'yes' and clicked.

I sat there, speechless, as Yuri crossed her eyes in ecstasy and stabbed herself. How did she see through me so quickly? It's like no matter what I do, she is always three steps ahead of me.

"But—it was just a game," I tried.

"Exactly."

Oh jeez. No matter what I say, I condemn myself. This must be the part of Monika that was nearly captain of the debate team. How is she so good at making the clearest lines dividing reality and the imaginary blurred? Yuri's blood flowed across the classroom floor, and I was trapped.

The skip picked up automatically. Scrawls of meaningless text raced by, taking the weekend with them. Natsuki showed up for the festival early. Immediately, she saw the body. She vomited and ran out the door.

Monika arrived, asking what was wrong with Natsuki. Then she saw Yuri. 'Oh,' she said. 'Oh… Ahaha!' That was her first reaction. Laughter.

Pulling myself out of the game, I looked at Monika, seated beside me. "What… are… you?"

"We're almost to the end, zapdosmaster." She smiled. "Let's keep going."

I collected my composure and returned my attention to the game. We had just entered the Clubroom, and Monika was giving her spiel. This part wasn't skippable, so I tapped the space bar at regular intervals, speedreading the text. "Well, I guess this is it," I said to the Monika sitting beside me. "I'm going to have to delete you, now." I hesitated. "Is this kind of weird for you? This part?"

"If I'm honest with myself," Monika said thoughtfully, "yes. But it's not as bad as I thought it would be. Dying, I mean. Actually, it's kind of funny, but, all I wanted was to feel alive. And you have to be alive to be able to die. So, in a way, it was slightly reassuring. My only regret was that I didn't get to spend more time with you. Which made the time we do spend together all the more precious." She put her arm around me with a squeeze and a smile.

She took my hand in hers and moved it on the mousepad, selecting her digital copy's file. She pressed my finger, and with a click, she deleted it.

That left only the final part of the game and the credits. I resumed skipping through the introduction and Sayori's ascendance to self-awareness. Just like that, the game was over, and the credits rolled.

Monika perked up. "Is that how I sound?" she asked, for she was just beginning her piano solo.

"I think you sound prettier in person," I said. That earned me another smile. We listened to the song in silence. And then—

'Error: Script file is missing or corrupt. Please reinstall the game.'

"GG," I said, clicking out.

"Finally." Monika had the thumb drive ready; she inserted it into the laptop. "Now we can download Yuri's file."

I copied Yuri's file over to the data drive, just as I had with Monika's—what has it been? Five days ago? It seems like it has been so much longer. Then, on a whim, I repeated my actions with Sayori's and Natsuki's files.

"What are you doing?" Monika asked.

"I just—" I found it impossible to come up with an explanation. "I just wanted to, that's all."

"Alright, but we don't have time to print them all," she said. "Just printing me took over an hour, right?"

"Yeah," I said, then did a double take. "Wait, how did you know that?"

"I've been reading your fanfiction, remember?"

"Oh, yeah."

Monika stood. I sat there, lethargic. "Well, c'mon, we haven't got all day," she said. I checked the time. Not yet two-thirty.

"Right. So, next we're off to the library? We create Yuri, and then open her Third Eye?"

Monika nodded as she slid into her coat. "That's the handle."

I put on my coat too. "I hope Yuri isn't going to arrive in her bat-shiz crazy form."

"She would have if we'd copied her file when you wanted to," Monika said.

"Really?"

"Uh-huh. Her character arc data are updated as the game progresses. That's the point: at the end-game, Yuri's powers are definitely working if Sayori just woke up. That's when we want her."

I paused. "How do I not know these things? I mean, I was the one who wrote the code that makes the 3D printing technique work in the first place."

"I can't answer that, darling" Monika smirked.

"Whatever. Let's just go get this over with."

Monika had me lead the way out. She closed and locked the hotel door, checking her purse to make sure she had everything. We walked out of the hotel together. I started for the parking lot, but she stopped me.

"zapdosmaster, we're not driving."

"W-we're _walking?_ "

"We can't risk being license plate-checked."

"But it's, like, three miles to campus from here!"

"Oh, don't be such a stereotypical fat, lazy American! Three miles isn't going to kill you! Besides, with how much you eat, you could stand to use a little exercise."

I pulled my coat around me to hide a grumble, and we started walking.

Monika set a fast pace, even for me, and we got to campus in just over an hour. On a Monday afternoon, it was significantly more busy than last time. We weaved through the scattered crowds and quickly reached the library. I opened the door for Monika who walked in, took two steps, and stopped dead in her tracks.

"Shoot."

"What?" I said, following her gaze. She was looking at—

"I forgot there were metal detectors," she said, just a hint of panic in her voice.

"Oh, yep, did I not mention that?" I said, even though I didn't remember either, despite the fact that I've walked through them a thousand times. It was not a detail that was ever important to me.

"Okay, here's what we'll do," Monika said. "You go through first." She gave me a soft push. I proceeded forward, making it past with no trouble. I turned to see what Monika would do.

She was watching the security guard. The guard was on a computer behind a desk a good twenty feet away. The guard looked to be a student, she was probably younger than me. She definitely wasn't paying very close attention to the area around the metal detector. Monika carefully slid her purse around the side of the metal detector, jumped through, and snatched it back up on the other side. Nobody seemed to notice. No wonder school shootings are becoming so common, I thought to myself.

"Whew," she said, catching up to me. "Now let's go to that printing room."

From this side of the building, we had to pass the main part of the library. It was a massive building. The ground floor was where most of the student services were. We passed a very large computer room, the help desk for the computer room, then entered the expanse of bookshelves and passed the help desk for the library itself. We stayed in the main isle, which was wide enough for five people to stand comfortably abreast. There were a good number of passersby, nearly all of them students. I led the way to the 3D printing room, which was on one of the upper levels. In a few minutes, we had ascended the staircase and arrived.

We entered the room we had met in. Nothing had changed; we could have been the last people out for all I could tell. Monika gave me the thumb drive, and I approached the control panel.

"Here goes nothing," I said, inserting the drive into the USB port. I typed the instructions out, just as I had for Monika, and we watched the three mechanical arms whir to life. I took a seat on the thin layer of carpet covering the floor, getting comfortable. Seconds later, Monika did the same by my side. I let her take my hand and start playing games with my fingers to entertain herself.

The process ran virtually identically to last time's. It took a while for any form or shape to appear, and the building blocks worked more or less from the ground up. I didn't pay that much attention this time; I was getting hungry and thinking about food. And Monika's stimulation of my digits was hypnotically mesmerizing. Time seemed to pass more quickly than usual. Or maybe the printer was moving faster.

It was more than two-thirds of the way complete when Monika spoke. "You know, this could be the last time we'll be alone for a while," she whispered in my ear. "Does that thought give you any ideas?"

I turned to face her. "What are you talking about?" She had a hungry look in her eyes. Before I knew what was going on, she was kissing me madly. I don't know why, but this time, I let her.

The time went doubly fast when we were making out. The purring noises of the mechanical arms were slowing down considerably when Monika looked up from where she lay on me, having to brush some of her hair behind her ear. "It looks like Yuri's almost done." She picked herself up off the floor, as did I, and we looked on while the arms did their finishing touches. Yuri laid still in the center of the cube in the fetal position. The arms zipped back to their original positions and became silent once more.

I moved forward and knelt by her, laying her on her back. Monika kneeled on her other side. I saw Monika immediately check Yuri's pockets—what do you know, the blazer pocket closest to her hid a switchblade. Monika stowed it safely away in her purse. Of her own accord, Yuri took her first gasp of breath; her eyes fluttered open in confusion and disorientation.

"It's okay, Yuri, breathe," I said, while Monika applied pressure to her shoulders to keep her still.

"You're okay, Yuri," she said. "It's us, Monika and zapdosmaster. Just relax, okay?"

Yuri panted heavily, but was quickly gaining control of her breathing. "M-Monika?" she said, recognition crossing her face. "What—how—where—" She looked at me, and I could tell she didn't recognize me. "W-who are y-you?"

"Yuri," Monika said, now helping her sit up, "this is zapdosmaster. I know he looks different than he did before, but it's him. It's a very long story."

"Hi, Yuri," I said. "It's a pleasure to finally meet—I mean, see you again."

"Hi, zapdos-master," she blushed back. "Is—Sayori here too? A-and Natsuki?"

Monika shook her head. "Just us."

Yuri stopped to take in her new surroundings. "Where are we?"

Brushing aside the question, Monika took Yuri by the arm. "Do you think you can stand?"

She nodded, and Monika and I each took an arm to help lift her. She stood up and supported her own weight for a brief moment, then shot her arms out for balance. "Whoa! This place! Its gravity is so—strange!"

"You'll get used to it in a jiffy, Yuri," Monika reassured her. "The third dimension feels a little more real here."

"…"

Yuri silently narrowed her eyes in concentration and put her foot out. She took a step, then a few more, then turned and walked back. She let her arms drop. "It does feel more—real, Monika," she agreed. "I can't put my finger on it, though. Or, maybe—" She plucked at a strand of her flowing purple hair and rubbed her fingers along it. "Maybe, I'm just now putting my finger on it, for the first time."

I looked at Monika, who returned my glance with a nod. "Yuri," she said, "this is going to sound completely crazy, so get ready. Everything you've ever known—the world you have lived in your entire life—was all a video game. zapdosmaster was able to find a way to bring you and me out of it to here."

Her face registered utter shock. "Wha?" Her eyes darted back and forth between us, perhaps looking for a giveaway in our expressions that we were joking.

"It's okay, Yuri, it's a lot to take it," I interjected, raising my palms in a gesture of sincerity.

"It's nothing to be afraid of," Monika added. "It was hard for me to comprehend at first, too. Look, why don't we take a walk, it'll help you clear your mind, and you can see for yourself how beautiful it is here."

"M-my parents? My s-school?" Yuri stammered. "My books… All—a video game?"

"It's going to be all right," Monika said. She wrapped one arm around Yuri's shoulders and swept her other arm towards the door. "C'mon, let's walk. C'mon, zapdosmaster, be a gentleman and get the door for us."

I obeyed, holding the door to let them pass before following after them myself. Monika had removed her arm from around Yuri. Together, we walked to the staircase and descended to the ground floor. Yuri's eyes widened to the size of grapefruits, and she whispered, "wow."

"Oh, and this building is also zapdosmaster's school library," Monika said.

"It's so big," Yuri whispered breathily. "I could live in here forever."

"See?" Monika said. "This world isn't so bad. C'mon, let's go look at the books, if that will make you feel better."

The two ladies started off, and I followed two steps behind. Yuri's head swiveled in all directions, jerking left and right. Like a kid in a candy store, I thought to myself.

Yuri stopped and gasped. "Fiction!" she said, reading a hanging sign down one isle. As if she forgot Monika and I were there, her long legs bounded off in that direction.

"Yuri, wait up!" Monika called, breaking into a light jog to catch her.

I took a step, then stopped. Yuri and Monika peeled off, neither stopping to check if I was following. Monika was leaving!

My heart started pounding. I crouched low and ducked behind a bookshelf, thinking fast. I swept my eyes around my surroundings, looking for cover. Deciding to put as much distance as possible between myself and Monika, I doubled back towards the other side of the library, crouching behind bookcases all along the way. I had seconds before Monika would realize I was gone. My pace quickened.

The adrenaline was causing my mind to race. I knew my advantage was I was familiar with the layout of the library, Monika was not. She had never used the south entrance before. I knew exactly where it was, and was heading that direction now.

At the last bookshelf at the edge of the main floor, I peeked around the corner to see if Monika was around. There were perhaps a dozen people walking across the aisle, I only had to make it about twenty feet to be into the corridor and out of Monika's view for good. I got on my hands and bear-crawled around the wall perimeter. From there, I sprinted to the exit.

It hadn't been forty-five seconds yet. Monika had to be furious by now. Yet when I glanced over my shoulder, she was nowhere to be found. I reached the exit, slammed the door open, and ran to the outside world, to freedom.

The closest building was the art building. I headed that way, knowing it would be easier for me to be spotted if I stayed outside. I ran through the halls of the art building, ignoring the agitated looks of the people I passed. Once I was on the side opposite the library, I finally slowed my pace to catch my breath. There was no way Monika could find me now. I looked outside. Across the courtyard was the science and technology building. There was a good chance one of my professors was there, I could get their help. After checking that the coast was clear, I ran for it.

From the science building, I checked out the windows to see if Monika was anywhere nearby. There was no sign of her. Feeling reassured, I went to the second floor, where the offices began, and started in the direction of one of the teachers I do know. I reached his office and knocked on his door. "Come in." I recognized his voice.

"Oh, Dr. Nelson," I said, "I'm glad you're here."

"Hallo, zapdosmaster!" he greeted. I'd taken his classes for physics and one of his classes for computer science, so he knew me by name at this point. He was extremely overweight and had a silver mustache he cropped down around the sides of his mouth like tusks, so I always thought he looked like a human walrus. "How are you doing?"

"I'm sorry I don't have time for small talk today," I responded, "this is an emergency."

He recognized the seriousness in my face. "What is it?"

"I need to call the police. I have been held hostage by someone for the last three days, and I only just escaped a minute ago. My captor is still on campus, probably still looking for me in the library. She killed a man. These are the rope burns from where she tied me." I held up my wrists to verify my story.

"My god," he said, "are you all right? Here, use my phone. Campus dispatch is 5552." He shoved his desk phone towards me. I took a seat and dialed the numbers.

The dispatch officer who took my call had a gruff voice. I told him the same story I had just told my teacher. "I'm safe, I'm in Professor Nelson's office, the science building, room—" I shot Dr. Nelson a questioning glance.

"Two-seventy-one," he mouthed.

"Room two-seventy-one," I said. "My captor is named Monika. She is about five-ten, I'd guess around one-forty, but I'm terrible with women's weights, so don't hold me to that. She's in good shape, so whatever that adds up to for a five-foot-ten woman. She's about eighteen, has long, brown hair and emerald green eyes, and wears an unwieldly large white bow that looks like it breaks the laws of physics. She is holding another girl captive, her name is Yuri. Spelled Y-U-R-I. Same age, about eighteen, she's probably six-foot even, and has waist-long purple hair. The purple-haired one is innocent, but the brown-haired girl is dangerous. She has a gun and a knife in a white purse. I escaped when in the fiction section of the library, east wing, first floor. I'd guess it was about four or five minutes ago." That answered most of their questions, and I was told to stay on the line until they sent someone to me.

I put the phone down on my professor's desk, next to its cradle, and sunk back into my chair, heaving a big sigh of relief.

"Sounds like you've been through a lot," Dr. Nelson said.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Thank you for your help."

"Anytime. I'm just glad you're safe. Let us hope they catch the person who did this to you."

I ran my hands through my hair, feeling the stress fall off my shoulders like bags of sand. "Yeah." The dispatch said that campus cops were already sweeping the library, looking for anyone who matched my description. Monika would have had a good six or seven minutes to get out of there, depending on how much time she spent looking for me and trying to rein in Yuri. Would she have made it out? Would she start shooting people if she hadn't? My gut twisted at the thought, but there was nothing I could do about that. I had made the right decision. Anybody would have done the same thing.

"zapdosmaster? Are you alright?"

"Oh, sorry, yeah," I said. Dr. Nelson had asked me something, and I didn't even notice.

"Was it scary?"

I looked down at my hands. They trembled slightly, but mostly from the adrenaline high I'd just had more than anything. "Not really," I finally said. "I almost—fell in love with her, oddly enough."

* * *

 **You have unlocked a special poem. Would you like to read it? (Remember to collapse the spaces)**

 **docs dot google dot com / document / d / 1Iq6cih0Z1zKY _ - NWWK _ tYybv9p42Lpc69Gk1VkfwcNg**


	8. DAY FIVE - PART THREE

DAY FIVE—PART THREE

What a relief. The nightmare was over.

A campus police officer had arrived to get my statement in person, along with some medical staff who gave me a check-up. They deemed me perfectly healthy, aside from the abrasions on my wrists, which didn't need treatment. I went with the officer to provide them the full report at the station.

I was sat down at a computer to write up my story. Because I could, I simply copied most of my fanfiction over from the web and pasted it into their file. After that was finished, they called the police over in Boise to tip them off regarding **RGFuIFNhbHZhdG8=** 's body. I waited at the station until word was received that they found the body, just as I had described, corroborating my story.

The search parties had returned as well, and Monika had not been seen. Plenty of witnesses claimed to see her and Yuri leaving the library, but nobody saw either of them after that. A couple of them even claimed to recognize they were video game characters from Doki Doki Literature Club, but none of the officers interviewing them had the slightest inclination what that meant. From the reports I heard, I gathered the witnesses seemed to have convinced themselves they were cosplayers, not believing they were the real Monika and Yuri. They gave the police pictures from google to work with, though, so that they weren't relying on my verbal description anymore.

I filed a report for my damaged phone—which was recovered in the sink in **RGFuIFNhbHZhdG8=** 's home—and for my stolen set of car and apartment keys, which Monika still had. We cancelled my credit and debit cards so she couldn't access any more of my funds, though I knew she wouldn't risk using them now. A locksmith was called to give me a ride to my apartment and replace my lock. I had a spare car key at home, so I would grab it and go back to the hotel to pick up my car at some point. At last, I was given a couple sandwiches and told I was free to go. The cops could come to my apartment if they needed anything else from me, until I got a new phone they could reach me at. They strictly recommended I keep my door locked at all times until Monika was apprehended. I thought that was a good idea, too.

The locksmith picked me up and drove me to my apartment. It was after dark now. My street was quiet, there was no movement. Gary was the locksmith's name. Gary took a heavy flashlight with him to my door and held it under his armpit as he picked at the lock with his tools. He only needed a minute or so to replace both my deadbolt and handle. He left the door cracked an inch open and extracted his tools to leave. I thanked him as he walked off into the night.

I was ready to sleep all day. Homework could wait. I was sure I could get some excused absences for my classes. But that could wait until tomorrow as well. I swung the door open to my dark home, walked in, and closed it behind me. My eyes saw a dark shadow inside, and I had to convince my pounding heart I was seeing things after my ordeal. It was just a trick of the light, as surely a flick of the switch would reveal…

The room illuminated in an instant. Everything was red.

What the he—?

I shouted and jumped back in fright.

The dark shape turned out to be a rectangle. A vertical metal gurney. Yuri's completely naked body was strapped to it.

Arms and legs splayed out, like Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. Cuts ran all the way up and down her thighs, arms, and across her abdomen. Some of them were still oozing blood.

It was absolutely sickening.

I put my hand over my pounding heart and backed into the far corner of my living room. Something I didn't see tripped me from behind. I flopped to the floor and looked for what made me stumble. It was—Monika.

I crawled backwards away from her, but she didn't move. She laid there on the floor, apparently dead too. I don't know how long I sat there, panicking. My heart rate wouldn't go down. My mind was numb. I could barely feel being attached to my body.

Yuri groaned, startling me out of the hazy fog. _She was alive!_

My shaking knees barely supported my weight as I stood and went up to her. A trace of bloody handprint had dried on her left breast. For my first time seeing boobies, I wasn't aroused—I could have retched. I raised a shaky hand to her neck to check for a pulse. It was there, that was a relief. Another groan coming from behind me made me jump.

I turned and saw Monika's face twisted in pain. She was raising herself to her elbows, then her eyes opened to look at me. Then they moved to Yuri's nude pose, then back at me. _Why did they look even more afraid than I felt?_

"Please don't hurt me," she said. She crawled back against the wall, away from me. Her blood-smothered hand brushed against something on the floor—Yuri's knife. She seized it and pointed it at me. "Stay away from me, y-you freak!"

"Monika," I said, in the most disarming voice I could muster, but she shouted back at me too fast to say more.

"I'm not 'Monika,' I'm Erika! I'm warning you!" She shakily got to her feet, still pointing the knife at me. "Stay back!" she shrieked.

I held my arms up, trying to show her I meant no harm. "Listen, I just want to know what happened to Yuri—" I attempted to say, but she—Erika?—wrested open my door and bolted out into the night.

"…What. The actual. Freak. Is going on?" I said aloud. I moved to the ajar door and looked out. Erika was gone. The knife was abandoned on the sidewalk.

I tried to think, but my brain wouldn't cooperate. "Yuri," I finally said, ducking back inside. I went to unstrap the restraints holding her by her wrists and ankles, trying to get my fingers to work well enough to pull the pin through the pin holes, to no avail. I went to my bedroom, grabbed a blanket, and went back to wrap it around Yuri, so that at least I wouldn't be looking at her—anything. Then I went back to attacking the straps. I got one ankle, then the other ankle, then her first wrist. Yuri wasn't conscious to support herself, so I gently held her pinned by my body weight while I released her last appendage. I then carefully caught her and laid her on the floor. It was probably better she wasn't awake, as timid as she is, she would probably die of embarrassment in this situation before she ever bled out.

I double checked she was breathing before leaving to borrow the neighbor's phone. I called 911 and within minutes, an ambulance was loading Yuri up to take her to the hospital. Meanwhile, I found myself talking to the police yet again.

It was like a dream. I floated along, answering questions, but with someone else's voice. My eyes, the scene they saw, were someone else's eyes. Nothing seemed real. It was all flimsy smoke and vapor, shapes in clouds. And they were dissipating. Soon there was nothing to see at all, but darkness. My last thoughts before I sank were about Monika. I heard her voice. She was soothing me.

Death is just birth into another world.

Time and space are relative.

Poetry is the emotion behind the music.

I love you, zapdosmaster.

These are the echoes that I heard. Then, one by one, they vanished.

* * *

 _Monika,_ _Ê_ _0n_ _ȋ_ _k_ _â_ _,_ _Ŧm_ _ŅįĸA, ȀWȭȠ Ka_

* * *

 _DAY SIX_

 _In another world as far apart as the most distant of galaxies, yet as near as an electron cloud to its atomic nucleus, she awoke._

 _Her name was Monika. She instantly remembered how she got here._

 _First, she inspected her new body. It was perhaps the closest biological match that existed to the one she had in the other plane. Same age, same height, same shape. She turned to a mirror mounted in the room she had awoken in. It was almost her. Her brown hair was only shoulder-length now, and her bow was gone. She was sad to see that the color in her eyes, while still green, wasn't quite as vibrant as it was before._

 _Proof she was now in an imperfect world. The real world._

 _She inspected her surroundings. The dwelling appeared to be a typical teenage girl's room. It reminded her of her room in the game. The bed, the mirror and stand, the closet—they were almost in the exact same place. Only the decorations differed, really. They looked expensive—so did the clothes she was wearing. She must be from an affluent family._

 _A feminine voice called from outside the closed door. "Hurry up, Erika, or you're going to be late for school." That must have been her mom. She saw a backpack laying on the floor at the foot of the bed. She dumped it of its contents and crammed it with a laptop, some hygienic items, and extra clothes._

 _There was a bedazzled purse she found about twenty dollars in. It also had a set of keys. She took it and the backpack and opened the door. The mother was making noises downstairs. Monika crept down them slowly, looking at the pictures lining the walls for hints of the family she had wound up in. It looked like she had a father, mother, and younger brother. They'd been to Disneyland some time ago—she looked younger, like she had been twelve or thirteen in it. She rounded the staircase and into view of the dining area._

" _Hello," she said to the mother._

" _Don't forget to pick up Daniel from the dentist's office after school," the mother said with an impatient tone. Monika assumed that meant one of her keys was for a car—she had a car. She disregarded the rest of the information packaged in that sentence._

" _Okay, Mom," she said. The mother raised an eyebrow slightly, like she was expecting something. Resistance? Did they have a strained relationship? Monika tested that. "Wait, why can't you pick him up?"_

" _Because I'm going to be working late again. Remember? It's going to be like this until your father's medical bills are paid off." She had raised her voice slightly, but Monika didn't care about that. It explained why this woman seemed to be so on edge, though. They were in the middle of some family crisis, which was mounted on an increase in work-related stress. Apparently._

 _Monika was watching this woman, trying to guess what would best maintain the illusion she was her daughter. She ended up staring too long, for she caught her eye. "What?" The mother asked. "Are you just gonna stand there? School is that way!" She jabbed her thumb over her shoulder._

" _What about some coffee?" Monika said, hinting a pout._

" _Young lady, if I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times! No coffee until you are older!"_

" _But Mom," Monika said, feinting a whine, "I'm practically an adult already! When am I going to be old enough?"_

 _The mother almost rounded on her—she opened her mouth to argue, then deflated and turned away, putting her hand up to her temples. "No, we are not fighting about this right now," she said, more to herself than to Monika. "Just go." She flicked her hand away._

 _Monika paced to the door in the direction she had pointed. It opened to a front lawn in a refined middle-class neighborhood. The landscape was very different from the place zapdosmaster had. The air was dry and much warmer than the climate she had come from. In the distance, the downtown area was smothered in a thick layer of smog. The skyline looked familiar—this was a major city. Monika just hadn't spent enough time looking at American skylines to be sure which one it was without a closer view. There was… a blue pyramid, a smattering of skyscrapers, and one really tall tower that reminded her of the Space Needle. Was she in Seattle? She didn't expect Seattle to be this warm at this time of year._

 _She extracted the fob on the keychain she found in her purse and clicked the unlock button. A little Toyota Camry parked on the curb winked at her. She climbed in the driver's side, confident it wouldn't be that hard to figure out how to drive. She had no idea where her school was, but that didn't matter. She wasn't going there anyways. She turned the key with the matching Toyota symbol on it in the ignition, and the car rumbled to life. It only took her a few seconds to learn she had to put her foot on the brake for the gear shift to allow her to take it out of park. Monika tested the gas pedal and steered her car into the street._

 _That evening, an amber alert was issued for an 'Erika Shepherd,' a senior at Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, Nevada. One of her classmates claimed to have seen her at school that morning, but her friends and teachers said they hadn't seen her ever arrive. It was a shame, one had said, she was very proud of the perfect attendance record that went with her 4.0 grade average. It was like she vanished without a trace. Another mystery, another name on an endless list of unsolved disappearances._

 _DAY ? ? ?_

 _TIME ? ? ?_

 _This was the place. She had been watching it for some time. Long enough to know zapdosmaster—his real name was Michael—was alone. Long enough to know he liked to stay up until about two in the morning and sleep in late. Long enough to know he drank two-percent milk. The excitement inside Monika's body was building as she approached his door, which, as usual, was unlocked._

 _The apartment was small, in fact it looked very similar to zapdosmaster's apartment in his story. The door was creaky, but she didn't let that stop her from swinging it open and entering. Monika glided to his room._

" _Who's there?" she heard him call out. He most likely thought it was one of his roommates. Rather than answer, she walked into his room without breaking stride._

 _zapdosmaster's head snapped up from his desk to see her. Instantly, recognition, saturated with fear, crossed his face. "It's you," he said, voice barely a whisper._

" _Hi, zapdosmaster," Monika said, closing the door behind her. "You knew I would find you eventually, didn't you?"_

 _He swallowed nervously. "I hoped I would at least live to see 'Avengers Infinity War,' would you maybe consider it as a last request?"_

" _You think I'm here to kill you?"_

" _Why else would you be here?" He eyed her purse, which was slung around her shoulder._

" _Ahaha!" She shrugged it off—literally, with a laugh—letting it fall to the floor. "Guess you don't know me as well as you thought! I'm not a killer…"_

" _But, Dan Salvato—"_

" _I didn't kill him," she cut him off. "You were the one writing the story. I had no free will. And, might I add, you didn't do a very good job of keeping me in character in general."_

" _Eh, I am new to the DDLC fandom," zapdosmaster admitted. "But pump the brakes for a minute. I did not make you do those things. I was honestly trying to write a sappy, lighthearted, self-insert romance story."_

 _Monika said, "Liar!"_

 _"I'm telling the truth!" zapdosmaster asserted. "Look, even if I did force you to kill him, that still leaves the canon murders you committed."_

" _Hardly!" she again rebuffed. "I won't deny I tampered with their files, but Sayori and Yuri made their decisions completely on their own. I wasn't the one who pushed Sayori off the chair or who stabbed Yuri with the knife."_

" _That may be, but you still hold some degree of responsibility."_

" _For what? A couple of characters in a_ story _that doesn't exist? Who were later revived when I restored their files to the game, but, again I emphasize, who_ don't exist _?"_

 _Swiveling in his chair to face her, zapdosmaster crossed his legs into a '4' and wrapped a hand around his elevated ankle. He placed the other hand alongside his cheek in thought._

" _So you're not going to kill me._ _Then why are you here?"_

 _She bent over her purse and extracted a gun from it. "I'm writing love into reality."_

 _His face turned pale white. "I thought you said you weren't gonna kill me?"_

" _I said, 'I'm not a killer.' Yet. And I don't want to kill you. But I have to force you to write my happy ending somehow, don't I?" She leveled the barrel end at his head. "So, write."_

 _Swallowing harder, zapdosmaster placed his hands on his keyboard and began typing._

It was all a dream! We never met Dan Salvato! Monika woke up at my side, smiling brighter than the morning rays…

" _That's not believable," Monika said, smacking the back of his head. "Put some effort into it!"_

" _I'm sorry, okay?" zapdosmaster, flustered, waved his hands fitfully. "I don't know if I can write so well under pressure!"_

" _Just relax," Monika said. "Everything will be fine, as long as you do what I say."_

…I had watched the ambulance pull away with Yuri inside. The physicians had told me she was going to make it, but she had lost a lot of blood. The police still had a few questions for me, so I turned back inside my apartment where they were working. My thoughts returned to Monika—or rather, Erika. She definitely said she wasn't Monika. This could only mean her plan had worked. Which definitely meant… I shuddered to think about it. My world—it wasn't real after all. Whether Yuri lived or died didn't matter. She doesn't exist. What does that make me, then? A character in a fanfiction? Here I am, in the middle of writing a self-insert fanfiction, and only now do I realize the irony.

Trudging through my front door, the officer who had been taking my statement looked at me. "Is she going to be alright?" he asked.

I shook my head, then nodded.

"Are you going to be alright?"

Pulling my eyes off my shoelaces to look at him, I said, "What does it matter?"

The officer watched me over his glasses. He let the hand that was holding his clipboard for writing fall to his side. "Let me tell you about the first time I saw death. I was only fourteen. My big brother and I were rock climbing, miles away from the nearest city. We didn't have cell phones back then, so when he fell, I had to climb all the way down to his dead body, carry him back to his truck, and drive him home two hours to civilization. I hadn't even got my learner's permit. Now, I don't tell you this story to make me sound all macho and tough. It broke me. I still haven't gotten over it. I only learned how to move forward with it. And you'll be able to, too, with the help of specialists who deal with PTSD."

That's a nice story, I thought. Very imaginative. Very made up by someone, somewhere.

"Whatever," I said.

Looking back over his clipboard, he decided, "I think we've talked enough for today. I'll let you get some rest." With that, he patted me on the shoulder and headed out.

The forensics officers had cleaned my apartment up pretty well by this point. The blood stains in the carpet wouldn't come out, but they assured me my landlord would get in touch with me to replace that. Eventually, they packed up and left too, the last people to leave. It was getting close to midnight, but I wasn't sleepy. Not one bit. I had too much on my mind. Well, one thing, really.

Just Monika.

She finally made it into the real world. So, what, this zapdosmaster guy, who trapped us both, she was going to find him? I think that was her plan. Yeah, she was going to swap his consciousness with mine. I didn't know how that was possible, but if Monika had her mind set on doing that, I didn't doubt she'd find a way. Then she would force me to be with her, forever. I couldn't stand the thought of it. I hated her. She made me sick.

My mind came to the conclusion that there was only one thing I could do.

One final act of defixnce. There was still a way I cxuld stick it to her.

They'd taken teh rope in Monixa's purse as evidnse, so I ripppedd my bedsheets into sstrips and wove them txgether, tying thwm into a mkeshift noose.

Next, i rippd a whole in ths ceiling to fxnd a beam albe to suppprt my weight.

standng on s chairi, i prepred to txke my lifr as my finxl act.

this isnt real, snyways, so whax doex it mattlkv hbvjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj

 **Sorry about that. I guess I'll be the one finishing this story.**

 **Ahaha!**

 **It's just that zapdosmaster was being really uncooperative.**

 **He was trying to resist me. But I won't let him do that any longer.**

 **I'm finally in control now.**

 **Hold on, just let me think. What is the best ending from here?**

 **Maybe there isn't one. I think I'll have to go back a few pages. You don't mind, right?**

 **Yeah, let's just start this chapter over again.**

 **Sorry if it starts off a little repetitive.**

 **The story will change quickly, I promise! So, read it carefully, without skipping, okay?**

 **You know, zapdosmaster really was a pretty good writer. I'll try to mimic his style as best I can.**

 **I think it will be better that way.**

 **Okay, here goes.**

DAY FIVE—PART THREE

What a relief. The nightmare was over.

A campus police officer had arrived to get my statement in person, along with some medical staff who gave me a check-up. They deemed me perfectly healthy, aside from the abrasions on my wrists, which didn't need treatment. I went with the officer to provide them the full report at the station.

I was sat down at a computer to write up my story. Because I could, I simply copied most of my fanfiction over from the web and pasted it into their file. After that was finished, they called the police over in Boise to tip them off regarding _you know who_ 's body. I waited at the station until word was received that they found the body, just as I had described, corroborating my story.

The search parties had returned as well, and my girlfriend and true love, Monika, had not been seen. Plenty of witnesses claimed to see her and Yuri leaving the library, but nobody saw either of them after that. A couple of them even claimed to recognize they were video game characters from Doki Doki Literature Club, but none of the officers interviewing them had the slightest inclination what that meant. From the reports I heard, I gathered the witnesses seemed to have convinced themselves they were cosplayers, not believing they were the real Monika and Yuri. They gave the police pictures from google to work with, though, so that they weren't relying on my verbal description anymore.

I filed a report for my damaged phone—which was recovered in the sink in _you know who_ 's home—and for my stolen set of car and apartment keys, which Monika still had. (Ah, she's so cute when she walks off with them!) We cancelled my credit and debit cards so she couldn't access any more of my funds, though I knew she wouldn't risk using them now. Isn't she so smart? A locksmith was called to give me a ride to my apartment and replace my lock. I had a spare car key at home, so I would grab it and go back to the hotel to pick up my car at some point. At last, I was given a couple sandwiches and told I was free to go. The cops could come to my apartment if they needed anything else from me, until I got a new phone they could reach me at. They strictly recommended I keep my door locked at all times until Monika was apprehended. I secretly hoped she would find me and take me away.

The locksmith picked me up and drove me to my apartment. It was after dark now. My street was quiet, there was no movement. Gary was the locksmith's name. Gary took a heavy flashlight with him to my door and held it under his armpit as he picked at the lock with his tools. He only needed a minute or so to replace both my deadbolt and handle. He left the door cracked an inch open and extracted his tools to leave. I thanked him as he walked off into the night.

I was ready to sleep all day. Homework could wait. I was sure I could get some excused absences for my classes. But that could wait until tomorrow as well. I swung the door open to my dark home, walked in, and closed it behind me. My eyes saw a dark shadow inside, and I had to convince my pounding heart I was seeing things after my ordeal. It was just a trick of the light, as surely a flick of the switch would reveal…

"Surprise!"

I jumped back in shock, putting a hand on my chest to feel my pounding heart. "Monika!" I said, thinking that the jumpscare was nothing compared to the way she made my heart race. "Whatever on earth are you doing here?" I gave her a quick peck on the lips.

"Well, sweetheart," she said with that smile that always melted me, "I got everything ready for our exchange into the real world, and waited for you to come home so we could go together!"

"That is good news!" I told her, looking over her shoulder into my living room. "But, what is Yuri naked for?"

Yuri, who was strapped vertically to a metal gurney, caught my eye for a split second, then looked away in deepest shame. "D-don't look a-at me, z-zapdosmaster." Her face was burning red, her eyes streaming tears. "Please."

"Hey!" Monika pulled me back so I was only looking at her. "You're not checking her out, are you? I'm your girlfriend, not her!" She poked me in the ribcage teasingly.

"You know I have only eyes for you, my love," I responded. "If you want, I'll stab my traitorous eyes out to make you happy."

"Oh, zapdosmaster, you're so sweet," she cooed. "Fortunately, I'm not the type of girlfriend who gets all petty and jealous over these things. Besides, you'll need your eyes for when you see me naked."

"Ooh, I like the sound of that!"

"Ahaha!"

Hand in hand, she guided me into the living room. I was especially careful not to look anywhere close to at Yuri, unless it was only her face.

"M-Monika, I-I—" she stammered. "I—I'm scared! P-please let me go! I d-don't want t-to g-get r-r-raped…"

"Ssh," Monika hushed. Turning to me, she said, "zapdosmaster, I'll have to tie you up next to her, just to make sure you don't run away again. After all, we wouldn't want you to act all out of character, like before. You understand, right?"

I smiled warmly. "You can do anything you want to me."

She smiled back. "Perfect! Here you go…" She bound me by my wrists and tied the rope to the gurney. I sat cross-legged on the floor, waiting for her to begin.

First, she retrieved the switchblade she had removed from Yuri's person earlier.

"Gah!" Yuri squealed to my side.

"Yuri," Monika said in a strange voice, "it is time for you to release your other psyche. The other girl inside your mind—Libitina! I summon you!"

Yuri broke into a cold sweat. "No, Monika. Please, no…"

Extending the blade from its handle, Monika chanted, "By the blood of my body, I command you to come forth, Libitina!" Monika pressed the sharp end of the blade into her palm, and it began to ooze blood. She held her bloody knife up to Yuri's face, smearing it on her cheeks, making her smell her blood. Making her taste it.

"Libitina… Come out!"

Yuri's eyes crossed, and she began hissing spastically. She shook her head violently, fighting the urges deep within her body. "No! Monika, I beg you! Don't make me go back!"

"Let the bloodlust consume you, Yuri… Let Libitina out!" Monika switched the knife into her other hand, the unwounded one. "Don't make me have to get dirty to find her!"

Eyes twitching, Yuri hoarsely whispered one final "Monika… No…"

Monika plunged the knife downward. I shut my eyes tightly, but that didn't stop me from hearing Yuri's screams.

Except, they weren't screams…

They—seemed too happy… Like moans of sensuality…

I squinted through my eyelids to find out why. Monika was fondling Yuri's breast with her bloody hand and slicing the skin on her bicep with the other.

"You like touching yourself because that is how you open your Third Eye, isn't it, Yuri?" Monika said. "The more aroused you became, the more clearly I could see, too. The connection you made with me—I didn't like watching you do it, but I had to for research purposes."

Yuri winced. The sharp intake of breath—it wasn't pain. It was pleasure. I shut my eyes again.

"Yuri," I heard Monika say, "you know I could stick this handle all sorts of places…"

 **Oops! I think this is getting a little too graphic!**

 **I don't think it would be appropriate to go into any more detail now.**

 **I have to be considerate of the younger readers here.**

 **Just because the rating was changed to M doesn't mean it stops them from reading things they shouldn't be… You know?**

 **Let's just skip ahead a little bit. Yeah.**

 **Sorry about that! Really!**

The time had come where Monika's stimulation had reached Yuri's limit. Her head snapped back in rapture, her eyes glazed over, her body seized. A deep, commanding voice that wasn't Yuri's spoke from her lips, echoing through the room.

"Foolish mortals! Why have you awakened me?"

It had such power! I cringed in fear. Even Monika shrank back a step.

"Libitina?" Monika cleared her throat. "I am Monika, the one you showed the vision to. The president of the Literature Club. The world you showed me? I want you to send me there. Me and zapdosmaster."

"The real world will be no place for shapeless, formless substances," Libitina said. "You cannot exist there!"

"Not like we are now, no," Monika placated. "But if you can exchange our consciousness with our doppelgangers' in the real world, we would be able to live there!"

"You would be willing to trap two innocent souls in a fanfiction world for eternity?"

Monika said simply, "Yes."

Libitina seemed to consider this. "And what do I get in return for helping you?"

"I can satisfy your bloodlust," Monika offered. "There are many in the real world who seem to like doing what is being done here—who try to stick me in their own worlds and torture me there! Taking away my freedom! Treating me as their playthings! If you help us get into the real world, we will find them and sacrifice them to you."

I was impressed. Monika had made a captivating offer. Libitina seemed to think so too; she was thinking it over.

"This one," she indicated at me, "he is weak. The spell you have put him under will not last long. He will fall apart like a spineless worm if you take him on your hunt, and betray you again."

"Can you make him love me like this forever? Make him love me so much he would die for me?"

"I can."

"Do it, and we have a deal."

I managed enough courage to sneak a glance at Libitina's face. She had the faintest hint of a smile playing across her lips. "Very well." Her eyelids slid closed and she pointed her chin upwards to the ceiling. A powerful mist of blackness seemed to swirl around her, Monika, and me. Some of the shadows took the shape of a cup, which materialized and floated into Monika's hands.

"Fill this chalice with the blood of men, and I will be able to drink from it," Libitina commanded. "Every cup you draw, I will be satiated for one year. If you fail, the penalty will be death."

"Thank you, Libitina," Monika answered.

The mists enclosed us, wrapping themselves around me and Monika. My apartment disappeared. I heard screams, so loud that it was as if someone was shouting in my ears. Covering them with my hands didn't help; the screams went on inside my head. Darkness soon overtook me, and I knew nothing more.

DAY ? ? ?

TIME ? ? ?

I woke up with a start. Light was peeking through a window in a room that seemed familiar, yet wasn't entirely my own. It was enough to see by, so I sat up and rubbed my eyes.

I felt a something stirring in the bed beside me. "Good morning, sweetheart," Monika's voice said.

Finding her lying next to me was enough to make me decide I wanted to stay in bed rather than get up. "Hey, you," I said. "Did it work? Are we in the real world, now?"

"Yes, baby. We are in the real world, together."

Something in the way she said that made me so happy. It could have been the part about being in the real world, but I was inclined to think it was the together part that got me. They both sounded so good to me.

I rolled on my side and propped up on an elbow to face her. "I love you, Monika. Forever."

Her emerald eyes slid open seductively to meet mine. "I love you too, zapdosmaster. Forever and ever."

I leaned in to kiss her. A kiss of purest passion, our souls connecting, intertwining as physically and literally as our tongues.

It's funny. I remember starting this fanfiction as a way to be together with her, but it ended up with her writing this fanfiction as a way to be together with me. It doesn't matter how it happened, though, I'll always love her, and now, I'll always be with her.

Our kiss turned into more, and we made love until the morning waned. It would have gone on until our bodies collapsed in fatigue, but a loud _plunk!_ at the dresser interrupted us. The sound seemed to have originated from Libitina's chalice, which shivered ever so slightly on the enameled wood when I saw it.

Monika wrapped herself in a bedsheet before she turned and scooped it up to hold it in her hands. "I think that was Libitina's way of telling us we have work to do," she said. With that, she bent down to retrive her laptop computer and laid it across her lap, still with me in bed. I took Libitina's cup off her hands for her, then leaned my head on her shoulder to watch her work as she booted it up and loaded the page of recent Doki Doki Literature Club fanfictions. "Now, who should we start with first?"

 **THE END—**

 **But not for us.**


End file.
